that they have made themselves so and it may prove a good encouragement to their own Soldiers if men can so win Dignities by Offences to share the Towns in Holland amongst themselves or to induce them to a Bellum Pyraticum or Sociale a smart and quick war amongst themselves and to Cantonize that Province by their own Hogen Mogens example Now that I call all in this Religious Rebellion Hollanders I do it for divers reasons First For that they were the most notorious leading Cards and for the Matter of Religion at the making of their Union they made themselves Heads and Supream Governors of the Church and Religion by these words Quant au point de Religion ceux d'Hollande de Zealande s'y comporteront come bon leur semblera les autres selon les Placards de l' Archiduke Mathias As to matter of Religion they of Holland and Zealand might dispose themselves as they pleased but all the rest were to conform to the Archduke Mathias So by this the States of Holland and Zealand got the start and mounting the Tribunal did advance themselves to be Heads of the Church in those Provinces for all Ecclesiastical Matters must be Come bon leur semblera They are now the Regula Lesbia to square judge direct govern and order all things in Religion and what they shall follow must pass for currant and in that manner and for so long time as they shall please Thus did the Cockatrice play his game and got footing for his beloved Children these Protestants of integrity in that concave Country Now as for their pretended Priviledges it is plain That the King did never intend to make them void so they have built themselves upon most false grounds which some time or other must of necessity fail them And yet I would ask of them if it had been so great an offence for the King to go about to abrogate their Priviledges is it not a greater offence for Subjects to usurp his Is it not pretty for them so to make themselves Parties and Judges and by their own authority to punish their Prince Which if it had not been backed and exactly copied out by our English Protestants of Integrity had been an insolency and indignity incredible to all Posterity and such as neither the Swiâ—zers nor the Amphictiones the Confederate Cantons of Grecia did ever parallel or come near For so they make Monarchy to be a wilde kinde of hold Kingdoms to be occupantium jus qui potest rapere capiat the strongest take all catch as catch can A presumption opposite to all Laws and a portal to let in all confusion and ruine But if the King should as they would have him forfeit and lose all his Authority and Jurisdiction yet I see not why or how they could also challenge his Lands and private Inheritance for that must needs descend by Law Besides if the King could forfeit his Soveraignty how can he forfeit it to his Subjects It is true a Subject may make himself Civem alienae Reipubicae a Citizen of another State or subject himself to another Prince But if he stay in his own Countrey he cannot of a Subject make himself no Subject for though he do rebel as the Hollanders did yet he is still a Subject but it is more admirable how of a Subject he should become a Soveraign that is indeed scientia scientiarum a very supernatural skill and far exceeding my capacity As for the grievous Exactions they complain of videlicet Of the tenth peny imposed by the Duke of Alva It will be necessary here to draw the Curtains wherewith they labor to shadow and obscure the truth Extream necessity and not his own will forced Alva to exact that which neither he would have done nor the King have suffered if possibly to be avoided but being driven to a sad strait for satisfying of the Soldiers who always grow wilde without pay and so to avoid a greater mischief as he thought he was forced to incur that inconvenience At this time some of the Counsel in England in the Queens name seized in Hampshire Six hundred thousand Duckets sent from Spain to pay the Army without any charge at all to the Countrey Besides the King of Spain had sent the Duke of Medina a man of a milder nature to succeed Alva who partly by misfortune partly by his sternness partly by some errors but most of all by some Foreign Princes disfavors was grown odious who brought with him Two hundred thousand Duckets which the Zealanders intercepted upon the Seas and so was Alva by these means further plunged and perplexed But hereby it appears plainly That it was neither the Kings pleasure nor purpose who intended so largely and liberally to furnish those Countreys but the extremity of his present wants which compelled Alva to those Demands and Exactions And so it was rather an occasion of scandal and offence reflected upon the King and Alva than deserved by either and a quarrel rather made and contrived than given But now these popular Orators that plead so earnestly for the ease of the Commons and seem so careful to procure the Exoneration of the Impositions and Taxes laid upon the people Why do they not now inveigh as much against these new Magnifico â—s now Hogen Mogen Lords of Holland who are so far from laying down and diminishing the Subsidies and Excises there that they have raised and augmented them in such sort as at this day no Kingdom or Commonwealth in Christendom groaneth under the like burthens And it cannot be yet forgotten how the Gentle Father of the people as they call him the Prince of Orange did propound and labor to wrest and wring from them of Holland the sixth peny towards his charge and maintenance Anno 1584. I could shew you an endeavor to raise the sixth peny upon the Hollanders a strain far higher than the Duke of Alva's sed transeat Now one thing I must not pass by for it will illustrate all the rest West-Friezland in the beginning of their Rebellion did scarce contribute Denis octies centena millia Florenorum and now they are charged to pay Quadragies centena millia librarum dues milliones Barnevelt in Apol. I use Barnevelts own words in his Apology because I would not be challenged for mistaking them Whereas they paid before but Eight hundred thousand Florins they are taxed to pay Forty hundred thousand Libers and two Millions which makes a pretty difference Who is therefore now the Grand Tyrant or Exactor Though the people have changed their Lord they are not at all eased of their oppression and where before they complained they had one now are they subject to the command of many Tyrants who fleece them to the purpose nay unskin them daily If Alva beat them with whips I am sure these new States chastise them with Scorpions Examine but their Excizes and Impositions how they are increast upon Meat Drink Fewel Men
the State Ecclesiastical but are alwayes brewing of new mischiefs bloodshed and rebellion in the Civil States of their Princes Their Cities themselves where their holy villanies have got footing resemble more Cyclopian Caverns rather then Temples of peace piety and justice indeed briefly to conclude the whole fabrick of their Religion is lik a Castle that I have seen in ancient painting built upon ruines in a land of quick silver cemented with blood and overthrown with frequent earthquakes and violent outragious winds For it is certain that if the arme of God sustein not an affair the more exaltation it receives the deeper ruins it finds Sic Pereant qui moliri talia pergunt which ought to be the Prayer of every good Subject is and ever shall be in spite of all Protestancy of Integrity the constant devotion of him that takes the honour to extitle himself Philanax Anglicus The Publisher to the Christian Reader I Have made bold good Reader to publicsh this Posthume Piece the genuine off spring of a dead Brother in Law of mine who was to my knowledg a most observant Son and in every honest mans esteem a pious Reverend and learned Priest of the Church of England out of duty to which as became an obedient member and allegiance to my Soveraign as a Loyal Subject I have dared to produce it into the worlds light especially being informed by better judgments that it was of a most considerable concernment both to King and Church My zeal therefore to the Publick good I hope will apologize for any particular errors in the impression there lying an unhappy necessity upon us to collect the whole out of very disperst and ill written Papers My Brothers name I hope you will excuse me for concealing because is does appear to be his will to have it so for it was ever his desire to live and so to die Plebeius senex unnoised in the world But if any one desire a further satisfaction I am ready to answer as becomes his faithfull Brother and good Reader Your very Servant Tho. Bellamy A Christian Caveat TO ALL KINGS PRINCES AND PRELATES IT has been a very great Controversie of late amongst Divine Antiquaries and not yet determined by them I must beg pardon therefore that it is attempted by me now where this Egg of the Consistorian Cockatrice was first laid whether at Wittenbergh in Germany or amongst the Religious Lollards or Wickliffists in England or the Waldenses before them But this we are sure of wheresoever it was laid that it was first hatched at Smalcald then fostered and nourished at Geneva and from thence took wing over most of the European Continent and at last arrived upon the fag-end of our Island called Scotland where meeting with too good a reception this fiery Serpent so inflamed the zeal of that cold Climate and increased his own confidence that he presumed to advance his flight amongst us in England where he has for these many years fed himself upon the blood and destroyed the souls of poor Christians But now it is to be hoped that he is upon his last wings if not legs unless some of his own Plume have the unhappy power to imp him again to His Sacred Majesties their own and the whole Kingdoms ruine In the mean time I take it to be the duty of all good Christians to offer up incessantly their Prayers and Tears to God with their utmost endeavors amongst men A Dios rogando y con el maso dando as the wise Spaniard adviseth that this devouring Dragon may be at last overthrown trampled under foot and tied in iron chains under those altars which we daily charge with our vows The duty now incumbent upon me is onely to represent him and all his brood in their truly native and rebel colours as they are malicious oppugners of Sacred Majesty Now as the skilful in the art of Imagery inform us nothing is so curious in a statue nor so hard in any piece to polish as the Nails which are the onely outward arms that nature has afforded us yet that is my present task to do nor onely so but their very scratchings of the faces of Kings and the tearing up of the whole Earth with their diabolical Nails for the undermining subversion and demolition of Monarchy through the whole World like true Protestants of Integrity Now to begin with the Foreman of this grand machine of Iniquity we shall finde Un Suiss a la Porte a Swiss at the door as no man fitter to be Porter to such an Infernal Palace and he appears to us sometime in his grave Rug-gown and pretended Pastoral-staff sometimes again in his swaggering Swash-Buckler habit striking and laying about him like any Madman but still keeping this Cockatrice Egg in his robustious bosome where he is resolved to hatch it if he can The first letter of this modern Cerberus his name is Uldericus Zuinglius Zuing. Tâ—m 1. Art 42. and thus he begins his game Reges saith he quando perfidi extra Regulam Christi egerint possunt cum Deo deponi c. Kings may be deposed where they advance ungodliness as Saul was Now how they are to be deposed he explains his own meaning best Gum suffragiis consensu totius Art 42 43. aut majoris partis multitudinis Tyrannus tollitur fit Deo auspice that is By the suffrages votes or consent of the whole or the major part of the multitude and this is a work so pleasing to God that they are sure to have his blessing upon it Here like a true Protestant of Integrity he puts the Sword plainly into the peoples hands and to make it yet more clear see his Epistle Conrado Sonnio Lâ—b 4. pag. 868. Permittendum saith he est Caesari officium debitum We must suffer our selves to pay a duty to Cesar but upon this condition Si modo fidem nobis permittat illibatam si nos illud negligentes patimur neglectae Religionis rei erimus if he will suffer us to enjoy our own Religion as we will have it otherwise if we should be so negligent as to suffer him we shall be guilty of abandoning Religion it self Thus they will be pleased to obey Cesar if Cesar will be advised and directed by them otherwise they have another course to take with him they will talk with him to the purpose but yet he will explain his meaning further and more fully to us in his Epistle Ad Ulmenses whom he admonisheth Epist l 4. sol 196. Ut coram auditoribus su is sensim incipiant detrahere personam Imperio Romano quomodo stultum sit agnoscere hoc Imperium in Germania quod non agnoscitur Romae unde nomen habet And again Nimis Amantes est is Rei Romanae quid Germaniae cum Roma Sed prudenter paulatin agenda sunt hujusmodi atque cum paucis quibus credere possis c. That they should by little and little in
with Protestants of Integrity Indeed there needs no other argument to convince and confound this accursed League but the bare subscription of this Monsters name to it as a principal in the Contract whom the world must needs judge very unlike to be a fitting instrument to advance the Cross of Christ and to reform Religion Yet this was the man upon whose head the Union did agree to set the Crown of Hungary Now I do wish that the partial Reader would look upon Germany and see the Picture of Troy on fire see the image and horror of War which we have already pretty well tasted of and by the same means and how well it would please them to see which of late we were very near the face of London and Middlesex c. so disfigured with wounds and desolation and they who are now most forward to blow the coals of discord and sedition and to inflame a State with fury and quick-silver may quake and tremble when they shall consider in what devastation all that beautiful Country of the Empire hath lain long mourning and groaning The Provinces about the Rhine were wholly wasted and impoverished by the Soldiers on both sides especially Worms all Tillage was suspended Traffick decayed Trades ceased Taxes imposed new Fortifications still charged the Countrey Men were not masters of their own Goods and above a hundred thousand men then accounted to be slain These are the fruits of Civil Wars which are bitter to them that taste them as I think we in England have done sufficiently if we do not yet long for more And these are the very fruits and effects of Calvinism it self if we can yet take warning of it and not be longer deluded with the pitiful pretence of Protestancy of Integrity For their justifying sole Faith can never justifie without it bring Charity in her bosom and the true marks of Charity bring Patience Humility Zeal and Obedience strongly conjoyned in one link Now the little Patience Humility or Obedience that these new Evangelists our Hot-spur Protestants of Integrity have shewed convince their Zeal to be counterfeit and Faith to be fruitless Could ever Charity have directed these godly Bethlemites to invade the Duke of Bavars Territories if he refused to stand Neuter Charity sure did not counsel Anhalt in his Letters to Donau 1619. Charity doth not use to direct Christians to sollicite the Turks assistance against their Emperors and Princes the Nursing Fathers of Gods Church as Pag. 80. Cancellariae Nor to set down such Plots as they intended Pag. 42. 32. 66. But these Minions of Geneva now called Protestants of Integrity bring Religion to plead in the defence of their Union and that they endeavored onely to punish Ochosias for consulting with the Idol of Acharon and to root out all superstition Here indeed is the voice of Jacob but the roughness of Esau words of Saints but actions of Devils All must be presently Idolatry and Superstition that does not please their humor Besides could they shew as good a warrant as Elias did Did God call them did God authorize them to deprive their Princes Per me Reges regnant By me Kings raign was Gods own Proposition 1 Pet. 2.13 and St. Peters commands us to be subject to every humane creature for God whether to a King as excelling or to Rulers c. I am sure there is no ground for such a doctrine as to degrade and depose the King and these Protestants of Integrity must needs finde St. Paul in his Thirteenth Chapter to the Romans Rom. 13 1. to be of another Religion Exeunt Paraeus Gracerus cum Bethlehem Gabore with all his Protestants of disloyalty and enter some if we can finde them of better of Integrity So we change our Scene into the Netherlands The Cockatrice is now arrived in Holland and Zealand that horrible Akeldama and Field of Blood and the Theater of most tragical and lamentable stories Now as you have heard the Axioms and Positions at large before of those grand Patriarchs of our pure Protestants of Integrity so the practices and tyrannies of these their followers are here best to be discovered and above all the actions of their Conspiracy in the Union of Utricht were the most capital and infamous A device it was perfectly framed according to the rules of Junius Brutus and in imitation of their great Grand-father the Swiss before spoken of and of his sanctified Cantons which of it self is argument strong enough to convince them of Rebellion though they have been ever pleased to march under the notion of Religion and naming their War Bellum Sacrum a Holy War This Union was made by the States 1578. who seeing the fortunate proceedings of the Duke of Parma and the whole course of the Malecoutents entered into a perpetual League comprised in Twenty Articles for their mutual support and union as they were pleased to term it First They of Holland Zealand Friezland and Gilders did joyn contra omnem vim quae sub praetextu nominis Regis aut Religionis inferretur Against all force that might be offered under the pretence of the name of King or of Religion After that the Prince of Orange and they of Antwerp and Gaunt came with him into the League and subscribed it the Fourteenth of February 1579. The which was afterwards confirmed at the Hague 20 July 1581. And the scope of all this was to abandon and expel the King of Spain and to depose him from his own dominion and inheritance Therefore upon that they established an Edict Que le Roy de Espagne est deschen de la Seigneurie du Pais Bas That the King of Spain was faln from his Soveraignty over the Low-Countreys And to make it more authentical they devised a form of Abjuration from the King and a particular Revocation and Dispensation of their former Promise and Oath of Obedience in these words J. W. N. Do swear avow and bind my self to the Provinces united to be loyal and faithful to them and to aid them against the King of Spain Coment un bon Vasall du Pais Bas as a good Subject of the Low-Countreys And when they had taken that Oath they broke all the Kings Seals pulled down his Arms seized and entred upon his Lands Rents Customs and all other Hereditaments and took the same into their own hands and as absolute Lords they coyned money in their own names placed and displaced Officers of the State banished all the Kings Counsellors published Edicts possest the Church-Lands supprest all that were of another Religion besieged Amsterdam and used all the Marks and Notes of Soveraignty in their own names Did not their Brethren here that were equal Protestants of Integrity do just the same things in England Now the Reasons they gave why the King of Spain had forfeited his Title and Right were these First The suppressing of their Religion Secondly For oppressing them with Tyranny Thirdly For abrogating their Priviledges and for
holding them in Bondage and Servitude For such a Magistrate they said they are not bound to obey and so indeed are as we have seen the rules of their Religion but to eject him as a Tyrant Were not these the very Reasons that our Protestants of Rebellion in England used against our most glorious good King Charles to wage War against him and afterwards to murther him Believe it these were examples and presidents of most dangerous consequence and which not a little concern all Princes to look well to for if Subjects may depose their Princes and make themselves Judges when they shall so forfeit their Crowns and Dignities Qui stat videat ne cadat He that stands let him take heed least he fall Kings had need to make their Seat secure and to sit fast if they can for these men make Monarchy itself but a very slippery hold And indeed Ambition and Treason can never finde a fitter cloak for their wearing than that which is made of the Holland fashion by the Religion of these Protestants of Integrity Now that you should the better judge of the particular quarrel of the Hollanders and their Confederates I should give you the whole story of that Rebellion but it is too long to recite I refer every ingenuous Reader to their own Annals which will convince them of the horrideft Apostacy from and Rebellion against both King and Church that was ever seen in the world before nor can ever be matched but by that of our Protestants of Integrity here in England It is most true that the Hollanders began their Rebellion with Lutheranism but that being too hot to hold the gentle stuff of Calvinism forsooth must be brought in which carried within it as it does every where its cursed Quicksilver which being once admitted made the fire ever after to be most unquenchable Thus did the flame burst out the people as in spight of all Laws begun to mutiny broke down the Kings Arms and grew so wilde as in a rage they pulled down Images robbed Churches rifled Monasteries and contemned all Magistrates that sought to appease the troubles And upon what grounds did they do all this Blessed St. Calvin gave them a Dispensation which they have not been ashamed to urge for their apology Lih. 4. cap. 13 21. A man saith he once illuminated with the truth Simul vinculis omnibus obediendi legibus Ecclesiae solutus est That is he that hath once perfect knowledge of their Gospel is presently absolved from all Laws and Oaths of Obedience to the King or Church Is not this a blessed Lesson are not these holy Evangelists It is here worth noting how a certain Hollander in his third Defence of the United Provinces calleth the King of Spain Raptorem Haereticum notorium most insolently and thereupon he infers Annon potius Regem Hispaniae quia Haereticus notorius est ex suo Regno omnibus omnium Evangelicorum viribus expellere oporteret Thus Proclaiming it the duty of all good Evangelists to expel the King of Spain with all their might and main out of his Territories because he was a robber and a notorious Heretick Does not this man look like one of Catilines Religion though cloaked with this new Gospel and pretended Protestancy of Integrity Now that this was down-right Rebellion under that specious pretext of Religion their own Countryman if they will be pleased to study him Honderius in Prax. Criminal cap. 132. one Honderius sheweth at large and indeed has drawn up their Process Seditiosi sunt saith he qui movent conspirationem adversus Rectores Administratores Regnorum vel illicitas Congregationes populi cogunt cives Commotionibus turbant c. They are guilty of Sedition who contrive any thing or conspire against Governors or Deputies of Kingdoms or make any unlawful Meetings or trouble Citizens with Commotions Now what is all this compared with their dealings against Alva Don Juan and the Duke of Parma with their many Meetings at Breda and Osterweal with their incensing and encouraging the Geuz with their defence of Harlem and Alcmar Are not those Actions good Comments upon their Law and clear against themselves But in another Chapter he proceeds to declare the conditions of a just War 1. Ut Bella sint just a Ideâ— c. 82. requiritur ut justa sit causa 2. Recta intentio 3. Personarum idoneitas 4. Autoritas Principum sine qua est laesa Majestas First A just Cause is requisite Secondly A right Intention Thirdly A rightful capacity of Persons And lastly The Authority of the Prince without which to take up arms is Treason Now if the States do but mark that sine quâ they may well hold down their heads and blush for shame of their impious Rebellion For in all their wars they neither had just cause nor yet good colour of a cause They were secured for their Religion by the Pacification of Gaunt by the Perpetual Edict and by the Articles of the Treaty at Colen by which they were to enjoy all without disturbance and yet would not they joyn with the States General to accept the same Neither could there be recta intentio for it was onely to nourish discord and disobedience against their Prince It is true they pretended ever Religion and the peoples safety as all Rebels use to do but it is as true that they likewise prosecuted the common ends of other Rebels not for the love of them nor their Religion but his own private ends and preservation Ambition and Dispair were his principal Motives and Counsellors and a Revenge upon and Dispossessing the King of his Soveraignty were his perfect ends and poor Religion his beloved Protestancy of Integrity served him but as a meer stalking-horse to all those Claudius le Brun in Pâ—ax Civ Crim. Besides let us but consider what Claudius le Brun lays down in his Book of Process both Civil and Criminal who addeth That whosoever surprizeth Towns Castles or Forts without order of his Soveraign as the Count de Lumay did in Holland and Voret and Barland did at Flushing in Zealand whereby the peace of the Country is broken Or who attempteth against the life of his Soveraign or his Lieutenant is guilty of Treason Now these Maximes all Europe hath ever held as Judgments and Decrees of eternal Reason and inviolable Principles of State which are never to be called in question And if the States of Holland do not observe hold and practice the same they can never expect peace at home nor any order and obedience in any of their Dominions By this it is manifest That as in the beginning these Hollanders are justly to be charged with Sedition so in their progress they stand guilty of Treason and Rebellion And then being so convinced Traytors by Law is it not now a little wonderful that they should become High and Mighty Lords by Law I am sure it is more by luck than cunning
Servants wages besides Loans and Benevolencies and you will finde that they have well leapt out of the Frying-pan into the fire Hen. Cnickins Henry Cnickins chargeth them to exact the fourth part of their Revenues that are Hollanders and live out of their Country Si in Provinciis nostris veniâ eorum degunt semissem jubet solvere si secus bonis exuunt c. Sed de his hactenus For these and such like frivolcus pretences must they have as all these Protestants of Integrity ever had that intend Rebellion but when they come to be ballanced in the Scales of Right Reason and are found too light and all their specious Allegations not to hold water Religion must be the master-piece to play the prize by and a cloak that will never fail to cover knavery So Exeunt Hogen Mogen Protestants of Integrity The Religious Cockatrice having with so much success and applause plaid over his Evangelical game in the Low Countreys sets his Pseudo Apostolical face a little more Northward directly pointing at our British Islands for his next Rendezvous and the most Northern corner of all them too he was pleased to chuse out to receive the principal honor of his first arrival Now we may well know aforehand what we are to expect ab â—â—quilone so then enter true Israelites indeed our gydd and godly Brethren of Scotland that no doubt will approve themselves and all their Bearns to be legitimate Protestants of Integrity for God forbid there should be any Bastards in Scotland Indeed it is not to be denied how eminently they ever did and do still patrizare though one would have thought that the fiery zeal of these Serpentine Geneva Rabbins would have been somewhat qualified in a colder climate and proceeded with better temper Now if we look upon the Primary and and Principal Authors and Actors of the Alterations and Tumults in Scotland the first and dearest beloved brood of the Cockatrice we shall finde them sure as violent as Whirlwinds blowing down with their breath all that ever stood in their way even Royalty and the very Crown ir self The Principal Instruments and as it were Legati à Latere from his Holiness Mr. Calvin for this great work were John Knox Goodman Gilby and Buchanan who were bravely seconded by Mais David Fergusson a Learned Shoomaker and Minister of Dundee as also Mr. Coverdale Willax Rous Harriot and Mongomery Victrix Legio Novatores strenni a conquering Legion of the right Cockatrice kinde stout Innovators and pure Protestants of Integrity Not all Writers of Books but all of them Ministers forsooth of the new Gospel and such rare Salt-Petermen as were fit for Fire-works and to prepare Matter to blow up both Church and State of any Nation What a pretty Gentleman Knox was and how well conditioned his Country-man Langey can amply tell you who hath writ at large of his vertues For Buchanan he was ever known to be a rude and slovenly Swits of a presumptuous audacity and a factious nature and one of those Protestants of Integrity that in Edinburgh in the time of King James the Fifth did solemnly in Lent eat the Paschal Lamb and being convicted of that Judaism which the King himself sate to examine his Partners and Colleagues in Religion were there condemned and burnt for that Heresie he with some of his associates escaped and fled over into other Countreys as men reserved to be further Plagues to their own But by their Godly Theorems likewise and Doctrinal Maxims you shall be better able to discern them and finde them extraordinary Doctors of Loyalty pure Protestants of Integrity and scarcely matchable First Knox in lib. ad Nobilitat Pop. Scot. Gentle Mr. Knox in his Pook to the Nobility of Scotland begins thus to instruct them Neque promissum neque juromentum obligare potest populum ut obediat auxilietur Tyrannis contra Deum No promise nor oath whatsoever can oblige the people to obey and help Tyrants against God And in his History of Scotland Id. in Hist Scot. pag. 372. he expresly assums That Princes may be deposed by the people if they prove Tyrants and act against God and his truth and in such cases all Subjects are free from their oaths of Allegiance and Obedience His Fellow Goodman also sings the same note in his Book of Obedience and that out of Exod. 17. Goodman in lib. de Obed. in Exod. 17 Toti populo saith he hoc orus incumbit ut animadvertat in Idololatram quemcunque nemo excipitur sive Rex sive Regina sive Imperator It is a duty incumbent upon all people severely to prosecute all Idolaters none is to be excepted neither King Queen nor Emperor A brave Homily to the people to teach them how to punish their Princes then he proceeds to shew how and by what order that is to be done This is Gods Commandment saith he to the people Ui in simili defectione Rectores suos qui à Deo ipsos abducâ—nt ad furcas abripiant suspendant that in case of such a defection they seize upon their Princes who would seduce them from God and carry them away to the Gallows and hang them up Is not this a rare Justiciary over Kings Nor is their fine Companion Buchanan Buchan de jure Reg. Scot. p. 61. in his Book De jure Regni Scotiae a jot behinde these two gallant Fathers of the people in his wholsome counsels to them For saith he the people are above the King and of greater authority they have right to bestow the Crown as they please they may arraign their Princes and depose them To them it appertains to make Laws and to Princes to execute them Sure our Protestants of Integrity here in England conned this Lesson perfectly we see they have followed it exactly Yet this was the great Solomon of Scotland and well chosen if you mark it to instruct his King as a Tutor but fitter far to infect the people as a Preacher But if you will yet have a little patience you shall hear these Godly Men speak their sense more plainly And first Knox sol 372. Knox tells us plainly That it were very good that rewards were publickly appointed by the people for such as kill Tyrants as well as for those that kill Wolves and other Beasts of prey But brave Buchanan enlargeth upon this point a little further in a learned Diaglogue of his Buchan in Dial. wherein he shews abundantly both his excellent Divinity and Humanity They hold saith he that Kings must be obeyed good or bad but it is no better than blasphemy so to say It is true That God oft placeth evil Kings to punish the people and it is as true That he often appoints private men to kill them But in the first to Timothy we are commanded to pray for Princes yea so we are also to pray for Thieves Is not this rare Yet again he must have the
other firk at the coat of Kings But saith he Paul commands obedience to Kings he answers Yea it is true Paul did so in his nonage of Christianity and in the infancy of the Church but if he had lived now he would have writ and said far otherwise As if the time wherein Buchanan lived had been more enlightned with the Spirit than that of the Apostles and that he himself were inriched with a greater fulness of the Holy Ghost and had a more ripe and solid judgment than poor Paul could possibly comprehend Thus are the people closely armed to kill Kings under the notion of Tyrants by the Zeal of Gods Church and Truth and the Light of the Gospel as by the Sword of Gideon and the Arms of Judith which must be drawn and directed by the people even against their Kings Now that these impious Paradoxes be the Doctrines not of one Goodman nor one Knox or one Buchanan but of the whole Congregation of those Protestants of Integrity is to be seen by their holy Geneva Bible Bib. Genev. 2 Chron. c. 5. v. 16. admitted by their whole Kirk wherein their Notes upon the Second of Chronicles shew That they allow the deposing of Queen Maacha by her son Asa for Idolatry and yet reprehend him for want of zeal that he did not put her to death by fire The like Axioms sure are not allowed at Doway nor the like Notes to be found in the Rhemish Testament But yet the practice and execution of these poysonous Positions and Doctrines is much worse than the pronouncing of their bare Decrees Less l. 10. Hist c. Lessaeus the learned Bishop of Ross saith that Eo Knoxii prorupit audacia ut publice Nobiles pro concione perstrinxerit quod Jesabelem ex medio non sustulerunt Knox grew to that heighth of impudence as publickly in a Sermon to rebuke the Nobles of Scotland that they did not put their Queen that Jesabel to death and yet these are all but words But observe how speedily blows followed For all the Histories of Scotland do sufficiently testifie That their first act of Reformation of Religion as they called it or Establishment of their Protestancy of Integrity was the surprizing the Castle of St. Andrews without Warrant or Commission then the murthering of Cardinal Belua 1546. And from thence proceeded to the Deposition of their own most Gracious Virtuous and Religious Queen our Kings Great Grand-Mother and afterwards pursued her to her murther here in England All which practices were sufficiently furthered by the rest of their Reforming Brethren abroad Bâ—za in Epist 78 â—d Buchanan the Prime Protestants of Integrity as appears by Beza in his Letter to Buchanan provoking him to those Barbarous and Satanical Treasons by his bitter railings against that best of Queens calling her Medea and Athalia and saying with his foul mouth that Nullum illius sceleribus idoneum nomen invenio That he could not finde out words to express or names to set out her wickedness and a great deal more in his Reveille Matin Reveille Matin and onely because she was not forsooth a Protestant of Integrity Nay King James of blessed memory himself her son and our Soveraigns Grandfather had much ado to scape their hands though but in his Cradle as he was pleased frequently to acknowledge and so openly that it could not pass the observation of learned men abroad especially one Johu Schuts Joh. Schuts his observation of K. James a Lutheran who repeats the Kings words thus Ab illis ego non solùm â nativitate continuò vexatus fui verum etiam abipso matris utero propemodum extinctus antequam in lucem editus sum I have not been onely vext and persecuted by this kinde of people from my Cradle and Infancy but also from my very Mothers womb and was almost by them extinguished before I could see light But we know better sure here in England than any Lutheran abroad could possibly how that great most judicious and knowing King was satified in their Religious rogueries and what he thought of them to his dying day and the warning he gave his most vertuous son upon his death-bed to beware of them Which how well he did observe I know not but this I am sure of That they were the principal movers of all his and his Kingdoms troubles and the cursed hands that joyned with the English Protestants of Integrity here to work his final ruine Sed transeat cum reliquiis erroribus But now here before I proceed any further I must be bold to make a stand and sadly intermix the water of my eyes with my mourning and sorrowful Ink and with a black distempered Pen deplore the madness of those malicious men who were the first engagers of us in our late unnatural Wars Ah poor England Paradise of the Earth Eye of the World Pearl of all Beauties How many times by the means of these Infernal Spirits Spawn of the Cockatrice Protestants of Integrity hast thou seen thy fruitful bosom heretofore crowned with Ears of Corn and Guilded with Harvests all bristled over with Battalia's How many times hast thou seen thy Land covered with Swords and thy Seas with Ships How many times hast thou felt the arms of thy Children encountring within thy proper Entrails How many times hast thou seen flames of Brothers hostility flying through thy fat and fragrant Fields When hast thou not sweat in all the parts of thy beautiful body When have not Rivers of Blood been drawn from thy Veins and such Blood as would have cemented the best Bulwarks for thy best defence against all foreign enemies whatsoever and if well employed had made the great enemy of Christendom the Turk ere this to tremble at thy Standards and have replanted again the beautiful Plains of Palestine But all hath been sacrificed to such Religious Furies Nor could these sacred Blood-Leeches yet rest satisfied till they had embrued their hands and made their hearts drunk with His whose every drop was worth a whole Ocean of ours Murther they must the most Religious and Clement Monarch of the Universe a Prince wise as Apollo Valiant as Achilles Vertuous as Socrates Pious as Aeneas and Beautiful as an Amazon must pass away as a Pearl parcht up with Lightning and leave his Anointed Head upon a Scaffold as a sacrifice to these Religious Monsters of Mankinde An action so dire and dreadful a Tyranny so barbarous that no voice or pen can ere be able to express it it makes the hair stand an end on the heads of all good men so much as to think upon it nay nothing but a stile of fire or pen of Adamant steeped in blood is capable to declare it And certainly as it was said of Sylla If that Mercy her self had come upon the Earth in humane shape they would have murthered her Are you not yet ashamed of your ingratitude you children of the Scotish Belial Had you
Insaniit Wickleffus qui sensit impios nullum dominium habere Wickleff was mad who thought that no wicked man had any right of dominion Osiander witnesseth the same in his ninth Century and divers others of the same reforming race who have themselves written altogether as Rebel Doctrines yet tax Wickleff highly for this that all wicked men should lose their propriety So as if Princes be so which rests in their sanctity onely to judge they must presently forfeit their Crowns And yet Mr. Fox calleth him Stellam matutinam in medio nebulae Lunam plenam in diebus illis a morning star in the middle of a fog and the full Moon of the time and the consequence of those Doctrines may be seen in the stories of Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham and Sir Roger Acton two of Wickllffs Disciples who raised a Rebellion accordingly and were by that active King Henry the fifth defeated and deservedly put to death for Heresie and Treason And how careful that phanatical Oldcastle was of his Followers may be seen in his Speech to Sir Tho. Erpingham that if he saw him rise the third day from the dead he should procure quietness and favour to those of his Sect But by his not resurrection as he promised his Sect lay strangled in the Cradle and buried with him till King Edward the sixt his days 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 than Queen Elizabeth had in fortie five yeers or any Prince before or since the Wickliffian Doctrine till the same smothered fire broke out at last in our good King Charles his time to his utter ruine and the shaking of the very foundations of his Monarchy And yet to this very day is Wickliff held for a grand Apostle amongst all the Phanaticks in England who are at present more numerous than ever Howsoever it cannot enter into me to beleeve that he deserved the Honour to be reputed the first Father of our Protestants of Integrity though he might possibly by that single Doctrine of his open a gap to all those gallant Champions against Kings that succeeded him So exit Wickleffus and enter valiant Martin Luther who is by some and truly not altogether undeservedly supposed to be the great Grandfather of these prodigious Doctrines against the State Dignity and Persons of Kings and Princes It is well known that in the yeer of our Lord 1514 the whole estate of the Church joyed a setled Peace and all their ancient Rights and Priviledges All Princes with great devotion were Nursing-Fathers and Protectors of it there was a perfect harmony and correspondence for all matters of Religion and Faith between the Church of Rome and the Princes and Common-Wealths of all Christendom Anno 1515. Martin Luther an Augustane Frier a man of a turbulent spirit was indeed the first that broke this long and happy peace who having interposed himself in the fatal business of Indulgences sent by Pope Leo the tenth into Germany began first as Proctor for his Order to preach against the injury done to his fraternity against the covetousness and abuses of the Collectors and against their Authority which did nominate them c. And finding as Novelty is ever at first well entertained by the multitude Populo placere quas fecisset fabulas and perceiving also some of the greatest Princes in Germany did hear him and would be ready to back him upon all occasions and in all his proceedings pufft up with vain-glory and an ambitious conceit of himself he presently set himself upon higher strains and as a man grown sick in his spirits and of a fiery disease he begun to rave and defame all Church Government he abandoned his Cloister cast off his Habit and renounced all obedience to his Superiours For now he preacheth against the whole Clergy against the Tyranny and Superiority of the Bishop of Rome whose Authority in matters Ecclesiastical was till then held sacred perswaded thepeople not to render him or them any obedience The Pope he termed Satanissinum Papam Messem Asino the Prelates he called blind guides the Religious he termed Swine and Candles set under a Bushel Thus he sought non purgare abusus sed tollere ordinem Triticum cum zizanio evellere studuit not to cleanse the Church of abuses but to extirpate all Order and to pluck up the Wheat with the Weeds Now his first step towards all the Tragedies he intended was this that he might work his mischief and confusion in the Civil State the better he first tears in pieces the Ecclesiastical and so proclaims open War against all the Bishops in Germany and therefore writes a Book expresly Contra statum Ecclesiae Luth. in lib. cont stat Ecc. c. adversus falso nominatum ordinem Episcoporum against the State of the Church and the Order of Bishops falsly so called in which he sends out his Bull as he calls it in these words Attendite vobis Episcoporum umbrae vult vobis Bullam Edictum legere non valdè teneris vestris auribus placiturum and this was his Lecture worth the hearing Omnes quicunque opem ferunt bona famam sanguinem in hoc impendunt honoremque sunm in hoc exponentes ut Episcopatus Pompatici devastentur tam remoti alieni ab omni functione Apostolica totumque hoc Satanicum Regimen Episcoporum extinguatur Hi sunt dilecti filii Dei verè Christiani observantes praecepta Dei Whosoever shall succour us in this business with their goods good name or blood and lay out all their honor too in it that these pompous Bishopricks may be laid waste and all the Devilsh Regiment of Bishops be extinguisht Id. in lib. cont Sylv. Pricat Tom. 1. dat Wittenbergh these are the beloved children of God and true Christians observing the Commandements of God And in another Book he tells us Si fures furca latrones gladio haereticos igne tollimus cur non potius hos magistros perditionis hos Cardinales hos Papas totam istam Romanae Sodomiae colluviem omnibus armis impetimus corum sanguine manus nostras lavemus Nothing must now serve his turn but to wash his hands in the blood of Bishops But here he must not stop neither the ruine of the whole Hierarchy of the Church will not satisfie his furious Reformation But as if it were as I doubt not but it was purposely to bring in Barbarism and to put out the eyes of the poor Almains for ever that neither they nor their posterity might ever discover his Frenetick Errors he
high and mighty Lucifer Now truly to make these presumed deer children of God thus to proceed from their Father the Devil may be taken for a bitterness and extremity of passion in me against that Party and hate to their persons which I protest before God I am clear from for I have and alwayes had many of my neerest relations unhappily engaged that way but only a detestation of their impious opinions and more prodigious practices which do cleerly demonstrate them to be deriv'd from the Divel or all the world besides to be so For the doctrines of the whole Church of Christ have alwayes been diametrically opposite to theirs if they then stand upright in the sight of God Christianity it self must of necessity fall to ground which God has promised never to suffer Over and abone all this I did ever presume the derivation of those Doctrines to be from the Devil long before I made this strict search and inquisition into their extract and petigree and my reason was onely this because their positions did not at all consist with humanity and therefore man nor any power humane could at any time be founder or undertake to be defender of them We have seen sufficiently already how much these terrible Tenets do contradict both reason and Religion Canon Lawes and Divine Relveations the opinions of all Primitive Christians and the practice of the whole Church nay are they not most cleerly convinced by Civil and Common Law nay Philosophy and Common sense The Law is plain Legibus non alligati sumus we are not tyed to Lawes who then is capable to judg a King that is above Lawes though it is a great part of their goodness to observe Lawes as the same Emperour declares Legibus tamen vivimusâ— and again digna vox est Majestate regnantis legibus alligatum se Principem profiteri It is a Princes dignation to descend to oblige himself to Lawes and the reason of all this is because he is presumed to be a living Law The Law again is plain as has been shewed already that no war can be made without the Authority of the Prince sine qua est laesa Majestas otherwise it must be treason and this I say is a fundamental Law in every Monarchy but it is plain our Protestants of Integrity would turn the whole world into a Democracy by leaving the bridle in the peoples hands which what a pretty beast it is when it has assembled its many heads and horns together they best know that have felt its Arietations We in England I am sure have reason to put into our Litanies From a Popular Tyranny Good Lord deliver us Nay heart St. Austin once more the most ancient and learned Father of the Christian Church St. August l. 22. cap. 75. contra Faustum how contrary to the false Principles of these Religionaries he proceeds to back these Civil Lawes with the Law of nature it self Ordo naturalis mortalium paci accomodatus hoc poscit ut suscipendi belli authoritas atque consilium pones Principem sit The course of nature it self accommodated to peace requireth that the only authority and counsel of making War should be in the Prince and he gives a reason for non est potestas nisi a Deo vel jubente vel sinente For there is no power but of God Cap. 76. either commanding or permitting and then he answereth the objection of all those who think they ought by force of Armes to resist their Princes for Religion and that by the example of the Apostles Isti saith he non resistendo interfecti sunt ut potiorem esse docerent victoriam pro fide veritatis oscidi They were not put to death resisting that they might teach us that it is the greatest victory to be slain for the truth The Philosophers themselves may teach the same thing to these wretched Religionaries The King in the Philosophers sence is Anima Corporis Spiritus vitalis Caput membrorum vinculum per quod cohaeret Res publica sine quo nihil Res publica ipsa futura nisi onus praeda si mens illa imperii detrahatur He is the Soul of the Body the vital Spirit the Head of the Members the bond by which the Commonwealth holds together without whom the Commonwealth it self will be but a burthen to it self and a prey to others if this soul of the Empire be taken away This was Senecas opinion Seneca and a sound proposition for if the Soul offend the Body the Body cannot punish it without participation of the punishment Neither is it a proper faculty of the Body to judg but of the Soul and understanding so much Philosophy as this the very Bees understand in their little Monarchy Virgil Georg. as Virgil testifieth of them Rege incolumi mens omnibus una Amisso rupere fidem Whilst the King is well all is well and in union but he being gone all falls in pieces To conclude Let us look a litle upon the Common Law which if any thing by our own Kings condescentions has prov'd prejudicial to Monarchy and its Professours most of them the forwardest Incendiaries and the greatest Knaves in our late troubles yet that gives the King power and prerogative enough for it constitutes him to be the body Politick which is a dignity Royal annext to the natural body whereby he is made Lord Paramount and is not sirnamed as others are but stiled by the name of the Body Politick declaring his Royal Function as Carolus Rex And to shew the Nature Quality Majesty and Prerogative of that Body I pray you observe the Circumstances First It cannot hold lands in joint-Tenancy nor endure a Partner 2. It cannot be seized to uses and so limited 3. It is not bound to give Livery and seizin of Lands nor tied at all to the circumstances of a natural body 4. It is supposed to be everywhere so cannot be Nonsuited 5. It cannot do homage having no Superiour 6. That Body is so precious that the very imagination onely to compass his death is Treason though there be no attempt at all 7. That Body vested in a blood ought to descend and though the natural Body be attainted of Felony or Treason before yet by the access of this Body Politick he is to take his Inheritance for that dignity alwayes purgeth the blood as it did in Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth for this Body was founded without Letters Patents not onely by the Civil and Common Lawes but those of Nature and of Nations and for the defence of the people And if Criminal causes cannot disable the descent much less can they disenable his Title when it is descended For the Crown of England is Independent his jura Regalia are holden of no Lord but the Lord of Heaven so it cannot escheat to any being holden of none From this sacred Fountain is all authority and honour derived Judges are created by it and have their Commission from the King to judge both Criminal and Civil Causes The Constables and Marshals Court for Armes and Honour the Chancery for equity the Exchequer for the Revenues of the Crown The King then alone appointing Judges who is I would fain know to judg him I very well understand what a Parliament means which at it is ever summoned by the King so their Acts must be judged allowed and confirmed by the King before they can be Lawes in the Senate rests Consilium but in the King is the power and majesty of the Realm and he is to judg and allow or disallow what he pleaseth In fine as the Spaniard very wittily and truly observes Ni Rey Traydor ni Papa descommulgado No King can be a Traytor nor Pope excommunicated There can be no Judg above the King nor Court of Law higher than the Kings Bench where I shall now be bold to leave these Protestants of Integrity to answer Guilty or Not guilty for their future demerits and let every one joyn with me to say God save the King and deliver him from such Treacherous Friends undermining Adversaries and Hypocritical Religionaries as are our Pretended Protestants of Integrity FINIS