of Paris in the great slaughter committed on Gods Saints and Martyrs about twelve yeers before There now only remained Henry the third the French King alive of all the first contrivers and principall executioners of that inhumane massacre which no age no time no action of the most barbarous nations of the world could ever pattern neither believe I can any ancient or modern History parallel the following punishments of the chief actors therein in all respects who not only all of them perished by violent and bloody ends but proved also the murtherers one of another Charles Lorainer Duke of Maine was presently upon the death of his brother made Generall of the holy League Paris it self and in a manner all the Popish cities beyond the Loire giving up their names and forces to the Henotick faction supported by Pope Sixtus the fifth from Rome and Philip the second from Spain When the King saw that neither his acting the Monk with the Flagellators nor his playing the Persecutor against the Protestants would secure him from a speedy ruine by the violent hands of the rebels He sends to the victorious King of Naver his brother in Law and to the Euangelicall Army before whose known valour the Popish Forces hastened back from the Loire to the Seine Henry the third pursues them and pitched his royall Pavilion at St Clou not far from the gates of Paris But his old cruelties and persecutions of the godly were doubtlesse the Remora of his new expected victories and the divine providence so ordered it that in the very place where the last resolution was taken by himself his Mother his brethren and others for the speedy execution of the before-mentioned belluine Massacre about seventeen yeers before nay in the very same house of Hierome de Gondy and in the very same roome or chamber saith John de Serres was he murthered by James Clement a Jesuited Monk in the yeer 1589. and in the thirty and ninth yeer of his age The assassination was furthered by the authority of Pope Sixtus the fifth by the seditious preachings of the Jesuites Priests and Friers in Paris who had secretly drawn infinite numbers into open rebellion before by their auricular confession and by the perswasion of the Lady Katharine Mary Dutchesse of Mompensier sister of the deceased Duke of Guise whose horrible transport with malice against the Protestant party and desire of revenge against the King himself did so far excaecate and blind her nobler endowments as she prostituted her body to that Jesuited wretch as impartiall de Thou himself relates to incourage him the more in the accomplishment of the murther and so to stupefie and harden his soul by that fatall sin of lust that it might not startle at the commission of any other wickednesse whatsoever Yet as this King some moneths before his death altered his former bloody resolutions against Gods servants so did the Divine providence at his death afford him some hours of repentance and sorrow after the bloody knife had been sheathed in his belly In which he acknowledged his error and sin his error in having been so long mis-led by his ambitious and factious Vassalls his sin in having persecuted his Protestant Subjects and inforced the consciences of many to submit to Popery against the known truth by cruelty and threatning SECT. XIV IN this fifteenth age also within the compasse of which wee shall confine our discovery of Gods Judgements upon persecuting Princes the truth began to spread forth its beames in this other world of Great Britain in a more resplendent lustre then formerly not but that I dare undertake to prove by some select and perhaps fearce known monuments of Antiquity that the Gospel was planted here in the Primitive time that the Protestants Religion flourished here neer upon four hundred yeers before Austine the Monk the first Popish Archbishop of Canterbury poysoned the purity of Gods worship with his burthensome Trinkets and Ceremonies Finally that it was from the first plantation preserved amongst the Welsh and Scots to the dayes of John Wickleffe without any interruption and was secretly practised also in England from Henry the seconds time at the least to the begun Reformation of King Edward the sixth But this requiring a reasonable Volume of it self to be at large deduced I must passe over as improper for this place We may begin in England with Henry the eighth in whose raign no Papist can deny but that divers Protestants were not only hunted after fined imprisoned compelled to abjure and otherwise disciplined but were likewise consumed in the merciless flames as Heretiques And therefore when the Papall side take so much pains to recount either the ill successes of his own raign or the dying issulesse of all his posterity as the signes and characters of Gods indignation against him they do but furnish the Orthodox party with weapons against themselves For the truth is he did only abolish the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome not the Pontifician or Papall Church which to this day as also in the former ages in France hath been so hedged up and incircled under certain restrictions and limits as it is of small consequence to help the Prelates and of little power to hurt the King So that Cuffetellus the Dominican proved it at large in an elaborate Work published in the yeer 1609. and the Sorbonists determined it in the yeer 1611. that the Pope had no power or Jurisdiction in that Kingdome in matter of Temporalities Neither did Henry the eighth in England proceed any further in this particular of abolishing the Popes power then those his two coaetaneous Princes Francis the first and Charles the fifth did at sundry times in their severall Dominions upon lesse provocations So the same Charles the fifth writing to the Councell assembled at Bononie superscribed his Letters only Conventui Bononiae as did afterwards Henry the second of France writing to the Tridentine Conspirators fule it only the Convention of Trent who also in the former and better part of his raign fairly cut shorter a great-part of the Popes Ecclesiasticall authority in France And how little Philip the second himself of Spain the sworn enemy of the godly regarded the Pope further then he did ancillate to his ambitious ends appeares plainly in this one particular that when upon the unfortunate death of Sebastian King of Portugall there were divers competitors for that kingdome and that Don Antonio had already assumed the title thereof he would not admit the Popes intercession to have the matter composed by Treaty or referre the cause to his decision Nay that bloody Charles of France of whose fatall end we have but a while before discoursed when Pius the fourth in the yeer 1563. had cited Odetus de Coligny Cardinall of Chastillion John de Monluce Bishop of Valence and others of his Subjects to appeare at Rome before his Inquisitors he sent him a stout Message by Henry Clutinius his Ambassador then
and three of them by violent deaths and in his posterity ended the Valesian line the Crown devolving thereupon to the royall branch of Clermont commonly called Bourbon whom his sons had most bitterly hated and persecuted Of all his five daughters three died issuless and the eldest that had issue was cut off by poyson Nay his very Bastard son Henry of Engolisme a great actor amongst others in the massacre of Paris perished also by the stab of Philip Altovit a Florentine his old enemy in the yeer 1586. during the raign of Henry the third his brother SECT. XII FOr Charles the ninth third son of Henry the second aforesaid that succeeded Francis the second his brother in the Kingdome of France in the yeer 1560. had he continued his raign with as much mercy and wisdome as he began it or followed the grave and seasonable advice of Michael Hospitalius his Chancellor in his latter yeers as well as he did in his former he had in all likelihood lived as vertuously as hee died miserably Hee had scarce raigned two yeers in peace and plenty when Katherine de Medices his mother desiring to vest and settle the Regencie in her self by raising combustions in the Realm began to perswade her son to revive and renew those persecutions against the Protestants which his father had begun shee reconciled her self to Francis Lorainer Duke of Guise whom but a little before she had justly feared and hated being a secret enemy to Lewes de Clermont Prince of Conde He and the Marshall of St Andrew having gained Annas de Memorancy Constable of France to their party conspired all together for the utter ruine of the truth The Protestants in the mean seeing the King in his Infancy to be held captive as it were by this Triumvirate take up Arms by the Queen-mothers own instigation to maintain the Kings Edict of Pacification published in the yeer 1561. and commonly called The Edict of January The yeer following by the instigation of the same Triumvirate not only the Queen-mother but Anthony de Clermont usually sirnamed Bourbon King of Navar also who yet died a Protestant was drawn on to assail the said Protestants by open force they in the mean time filling the Queen-mothers ears with these vain flatteries that she should soon see the utter ruine of all the Heretikes in France from which time that goodly kingdome so rich peaceable and flourishing for neer upon forty yeers together some short times of truce and peace being interposed was filled with cruelties ravages ravishments blood-shedding battels sires slaughters and all other calamitous desolations that accompany intestine and civill broiles in the issue of all which the Protestants being increased in their strength and numbers obtained a more firm and advantageous peace then ever they had before enjoyed whereas those three Incendiaries of all these miseries perished within a few yeers after by the just judgement of God in the very act of their hostile pursuements of his children The Marshall of Saint Andrew was slain at the battell of Dreux Annas de Memorancie under the very walls of Paris and Francis Lorainer Duke of Guise was pistolled by John Poltrot at the siege of Orleance King Charles seeing that open force could not destroy the truth nor root out the Professors thereof about two yeers before the hellish massacre began at Paris and continued to the perpetuall infamy of France in divers other Cities in that Realm held a secret Councell in the Castle of Blois with Katherine de Medices his mother Alexander and Hercules called also Henry and Francis his two brothers and Henry Lorainer son and heir of the before pistolled Duke Francis Duke of Guise by what means they might best draw the Protestants into their toile to destroy and murther them The same Councell was held again by King Charles in the house of Hieronimo de Gondy at St. Clou and the time and order of the bloody marriage banquet to be served in at the nuptials of the King of Navar with the Lady Margaret his sister was there agreed upon and resolved of almost in the same manner as it was afterwards put in execution upon the 24. day of August being St Bartholomews day in the yeer 1572. in which were most inhumanely slaughtered within the space of few dayes of men women and children many of them also being great and honourable personages of either sex about thirty thousand And while the Duke of Guise was busie in prosecuting that mercilesse and inhumane execution it was seriously advised upon and disputed of in the Queen-mothers Cabinet-councell whether it were not necessary that hee himself and the rest of his family then there should also be dispatched at the same time in that tumult King Charles himself never saw good day after that bloody massacre although his Court sycophants had promised him it should prove the first happy day of his absolute Monarchie for though hee had been long drenched in lust a sin seldome separated from a Persecutor by his ordinary advowtrie with a mean wench of Orleance on whom hee begot Charles of Engolisme after Earle of Auvergne and though he had been trained up by his mother to see the flaughter of beasts and ever in the chases loved to both his hands in the bloud of the fallen game all which might have served to have stupefied his conscience as they did enflame his fierce and cruell nature yet so stinging a remorse in his inward man did ever pursue and haunt him after that mercilesse slaughter accomplished chiefly by his often swearing and forswearing himself by which the Queen of Navar and the Admirall Chasrilion were deceived as that his eyes rolled often uncertainly in the day with feare and suspicion and his sleep was usually interrupted in the night with dismall dreams apparitions like R. 3. of England after the murther of his two Nephews in the Tower of London nay though he survived not this inhumane slaughter sull two yeares yet had he plotted and decreed the death of the said Henry Duke of Guise and the removall of his Queen-mother her instruments from the helm of State But some of his agents that were to have acted these last feats playing false with him as he had some few dayes before the said massacre poysoned that incomparable Princesse for learning and piety Joan D'Albret Queen of Navar Grandmother to Lewes the thirteenth now King of France so did his mother or the Duke of Guise by way of prevention or anticipation minister to him his fatall physick of which after many sharp and grievous torments he deceased upon Whitsunday having not then attained to the five and twentieth yeare of his age in the yeare 1574. the violence of the venome leaving in his intrailes as appeared upon his distection many blew spots and swellings SECT. XIII WE have seen the gain and advantage that King Charles the ninth of France made by his barbarous persecutions 't is likely that those very flatterers
profits of them And not many yeers after he gave liberty also to the very Mahometan Moores in Spain amounting to divers thousands to depart freely thence into any Province of Africa there to enjoy freedome from the bloody Inquisitors and with his own shipping conveyed many of them safe into France through which by the graclous permission of Henry the Great they had safe and free passage Charles the ninth also the French King did by his Agents earnestly sollicite Lewes de Clermont Prince of Conde and Gaspar de Colignie Earle of Cistillion Admirall of that Kingdome being the chief Commanders and Directors of the Protestants affaires to depart the Kingdome with the rest of the Religion and that they might begin a Plantation in the Island of Florida in America hee not only gave leave to the first expedition which was undertaken by John Ribald in the yeer 1562. but also at the same Admirals intreaty did contribute very largely himself to the second navigation which was entred upon not long after the first by Renate Laudonere and divers other Protestants But it pleased God that this fair occasion not only of enlarging the French Empire but also of planting a blessed Church amongst those Heathen people was in the very bloome and infancy prevented and brought to nothing by the precipitation of Luidonere himself and by those factious Romanists about the King who occasioned new civill wars and tumults in the Realme After the horrible and inhumane massacre of Paris in the yeer 1572. which was partly resolved upon because the Protestants would not upon any terms remove out of France and so desert and leave their deare and native countrey Charles Duke of Loraine intending to take that occasion to extirpate the true Religion out of his own Dominions which he might have done by their slaughters yet gave them liberty to depart whithersoever they would in safety and full time to sell and dispose of their goods and estates Nay Queen Mary of England whose bloody persecutions shall make her raign infamous to the worlds end yet in her first yeer expressed so much mercy as having publikely declared that she meant to restore the Romish Religion shee further permitted to all her subjects that would not professe the same free liberty to depart out of her kingdome by which the lives and ravagings of many hundreds were saved and amongst them divers of the Clergie for the first sensible persecution began then in St. Johns Colledge in Cambridge where the Idolatrous bowing to the Masse and Altar being wickedly practised and pressed divers immediatly left the same Colledge thereupon Now if the Popish Prelates of those times who accounted the Protestants arch-heretiques and mortally hated them did yet perswade the Kings and Princes they served and too often misadvised to permit the Protestants freedome of departure with liberty and time to sell their goods and estates is it possible that there should live in and under any Protestant Church such inveterately hating Prelates against the weaker and humbler Christians who dissent from them as themselves pretend only in matters of form and order arbitrary to be abolished or retained by the supreme Magistrate as neither to suffer them to live quietly at home without vexation suites fines suspension deprivation and imprisonment which in many cases occasioneth their immature deaths nor yet suffer them to depart quietly to plant a Church amongst the very Heathens themselves to the honour of God and the inlargement of their Soveraignes Empire and profit Is it possible that so many miles distance should not abate and asswage the very malice of Rome it self against them Were their departure like that of the fugitive Romanists a few yeers since to joyn with the publike enemies of the Kingdome to invade it and to be more forward to subdue it to a cruell and barbarous Nation as they were in eighty eight then the adversaries themselves then might there be some colourable reason to use all extremity and cruelty against them for their ruine and extirpation but when their hearts and soules breath forth nothing but loyaltie and innocencie the throne and kingdome fare the better for their prayers and humiliations and the worst they desire is but the quiet of their own consciences how is it possible they should be so prodigiously hated of any that would but pretend truly to love the Gospel and heartily to vote the flourishing of it Certainly it is impossible they should be so transported with barbarous rage as some of the Popes have been who rather desired to see the ruine of those innocent Christians then of the very Turks and Mahometans unlesse they will yeeld themselves to be as deeply toxicated with the dregs of that Romish cup as the Jesuites are who in the yeere 1578. began to preach and teach publikely that it was a more acceptable work to God for Christian Princes to root out and persecute all Sectaries and Schismatikes amongst themselves then for them to joyn their forces against the Turks and Infidels A doctrine saith Monsieur de Thou one of their own Historians contrary to all Christian pietie and mansuetude who with the rest of the sober and moderate Romanists by their charitable and advised censures given of the strictest and most tender conscienced Christians notwithstanding they most abhor any the least intermixtures and additions in Gods Worship which have been introduced by the Papists shall at the last day rise up in judgement against the invectives of many seeming Protestants of both orders against the same persons endeavouring thereby to prepossesse the eares and fascinate the judgements of the greatest Princes that so they may obtain license and power under them utterly to ruine and destroy their humble and pious fellow-Christians who are notwithstanding permitted quietly and safely to enjoy the publike liberty of their conscience in those Kingdomes and States where the Romish Religion it self flourisheth SECT. XXIV UNder Henry the fourth the late great and victorious French King the major part of the Papists of that kingdome continued in a most obstinate and furious war against him during the first four yeers of his raigne calling into their succours the Spaniards the sworn enemies of that Crown and State and yet he offered them not only to permit all his Romanized subjects the publike exercise of their Religion but also to continue it in all places in the same forme and freedome as it had been used at the time of the murther of Henry the third his predecessor by a Jesuited assassinate And further implored his own Subjects Not to endeavour to force him to the change of his Religion which he knew to be the truth being a cruelty hee desired not to practise upon the meanest of them The Protestants will yeeld up their Religion as false and wicked if ever such an example can be produced against them where they had libertie of conscience sincerely afforded them and yet took up armes against their lawfull Soveraign But those
Great and Lewes the Good in France ordaine for such as were counted Sectaries in their times Neither did those three hundred and eighteen Fathers in the first Nicene Councell those six hundred and thirty in that of Chalcedon or those hundred and fifty in that of Constantinople use any other weapons against the same Arrians Nestorians and Macedonians then the Word of God nor stirred they up or permitted the Christian Magistrate in their dayes to punish them by death Paulus Aquiliensis and Cedrenus doe also both of them report that when the Emperour Justinus used clemency towards the very Arrian Heretiques Theodoricus the King of Italy being infected with the same poyson did notwithstanding led by that example suffer the Orthodox Christians to have the free exercise of their Religion in all his Dominions Wee shall need no further examples to prove this truth when it is confessed by one of the most learned and best Romanists of our age that there is no approved example in all the Monuments of Antiquity of any execution done upon the Sectaries of those times but that the Church of God did alwayes abhorre the shedding of bloud in matters that meerly concern Religion Jac. Aug. Thuanus Prooem. in Histor. p. 5. SECT. VI IT is likewise contrary to the practice of the best Princes and the wisest States of this latter age of the world to make matter of heresie it selfe a capitall crime Francis the first of that name King of France having decreed a persecution against the poore Protestants of Merindoll and Cabrieres and being informed by William Bellay Lord Langay Governour of the Province that they were harmless men very laborious in their callings just in their dealings loyall to their Prince charitable to the poore and very frequent in their prayers to God their innocency being likewise cleared in a great measure by Cardinall Sadolet himselfe he caused them to be freed from further persecution till being falsly informed by one Minerius a turbulent fellow that there were fifteen thousand of them up in armes in rebellion he rashly gave them over to the fury of their enemies yet not as Heŕetiques which he alwayes accounted them but as Traytors as he was then mis-informed of them In Germany Ferdinand the first taught by the error of Charles the fifth his elder Brother found no such meanes to make his Government happy and his Empire flourishing as to decree the liberty of Religion Which course the good Emperour Maximilian his Sonne following dyed as happy as he lived victorious The Venetian State indure no Inquisitors in matters of Religion nor if any of their Subjects be accused of Heresie doe they suffer it to be questioned before any of the Clergy alone who are thirsty after bloud but before them joyntly together with their Civill Judges The first Monarch in England that made matter of Religion a capitall crime by a publick Act or Statute was the usurper Henry the fourth who having by the perswasion and assistance of Thomas Arundell that traytor Archbishop of Canterbury and his fellow-Prelates deposed and murdered his lawfull Soveraigne Richard the second to curry favour with those bloudy Canniballs was forced to yeeld to the murdering of Gods Saints since whose time the bloud of the Martyrs in England have proved the seed of the Church although by the short raigne of that Kingdomes unfortunate Mary their number comes far short of those in France and the seventeene Provinces in which two Dominions within the space of little more then five yeares the curious searcher may finde by diligent inquisition that Gods truth was sealed under Charles the ninth of France and Philip the second of Spaine with the bloud of near upon two hundred thousand Martyrs amongst whom were slaughtered divers great and eminent personages of both sexes a cruelty that very Mahumetans doe abhorre as it appeared by that which the Ambassadours sent from Abas-Meriza the Persian Sultan to the Emperour Rodolph in the yeare 1604. did alledge to justifie the mercifull Government of that Empire to wit that all Christians had free liberty of Conscience in all their Soveraignes Dominions and therefore they exhorted his Imperiall Majesty to joyn in a firme league with him against their common enemy the Turke SECT. VII AS it is against the practice of the Primitive Church the course held by the Christian Emperours and the observation of the wisest Princes and States of the latter age though otherwise Pontifician to make matter of heresie a capitall crime to inforce the Conscience and to put to death for the cause of Religion meerly so it is against the Rules of charitie and reason First It is against the Rules of charity if we had no other light to guide us but the most wise answer of Englands last matchlesse Edward being then but a childe when he was pressed to yeeld his assent to the burning of an Heretique What said he shall I send him to hell By which he truly intimated that whereas in all other offences the Malefactors are punished with death because it may be hoped they have repented the sinne but to destroy an Heretick before conviction is to be the Devils Catour and to send him in provision even to Hell it selfe For the very pertinacious holding of an Heresie is agreed on by all sides to be a damnable sinne and then the cutting them off in that sinne is to be the immediate Instrument of their perdition This doth that virulent Romanist or monster of men Nicholas Harpsfeild in his Wiclevian History openly boast of Cap. 16. p. 717. That those blessed Champions of Christ whom he calls Heretiques did in the fires that consumed their bodies taste the first-fruits of the eternall fire they endured afterwards On the other side if they suffer not but for feare of death hope of preferment or other base ends turne from one Religion to another especially from the truth to errour and Idolatry without instruction or reasonable conviction they onely dissemble outwardly as the Moores of Gran ido did under that bloudy Philip the second of Spaine who being enforced to be present at the Masse in the morning practised their own Mahumetanisme in the evening or els their conscience being shipwracked by their Apostasie before conviction with Francis Spira they are swallowed up of despaire or with Peter Espinae Archbishop of Lions of the Henetick faction in Henry the fourths time of France with lust and Epicurisme who practised that emasculating sinne with his own sister The Jews in England from Willian the firsts time till the eighteenth yeare of Edward the first were the onely Usurers of the Realme and brought in large contributions and tallages to the Kings under whom they lived and enjoyed here the freedome of their consciences At their deaths their whole Estates escheated to the King which their next heires commonly redeem'd for one full third part of three But to incourage them to turne Christians it was appointed in the Assize by which they were
was written by a humane pen ought alwayes to be deare to the Christian world discovers plainly to us this truth in setting downe the bloudy Legacy Pope Paul the third left to his Conclave when he died in the yeare 1359. For having called divers of the Cardinalls into his bed-chamber he exhorted them by all meanes to maintaine and continue the office of the Inquisition as the onely meanes left upon earth to establish and support the Romish Religion then which Confession there can none be more cleare of the falshood of their pretended Catholick Church for if no other way remaine but bloud and butcheries for them to establish and repaire the lofty and proud Towers of their Babylon then have they doubtlesse no part left in the Church founded by our Saviour and his Apostles for that was at first reared up and finished by the preaching of the Gospel and may certainly be continued and supported to the worlds end by the same meanes It is not for Christians but for Pagans and Infidells who know not the way of instruction to propagate their Gentilisme and Idolatry by fire and sword Besides that epidemicall sinne of lust both naturall and against nature being peculiar to the Popish Prelates and the rest of their Clergie is a maine ground of their stupefied Consciences and so prepares and fits them for the shedding of innocent bloud or any other sinne whatsoever Peter Espinaâ— Archbishop of Lyons in France was a great persecutor and a prodigious incestuator with his own sister John Archbishop of St. Andrewes in Scotland spent the greater part of the revenues of his Sea and the seizure of the Protestants estates whose mortall enemy he was upon his harlots and revellings the Cardinall of Granvellans veneries were so manifest and numerous as when in the yeare 1574. the Kingdome of Tunis and the Fort called the Gulet before accounted impregnable were wonne by the Turke the Spaniards made a jest of it and said openly that the Cardinalls breeches had occasioned that losse meaning thereby that Philip the second relying chiefly upon his advice in that and most of the rest of his important affaires his lust so tooke him up as he had not time to give seasonable counsell The reckoning up of all these lustfull Priests and Prelates who have been persecuters of the truth since the last Reformation begun by learned Luther would defile all modest eares to heare or any Christian tongue to relate It may justly be said of them all what one delivered of the before-mentioned Cardinall Beton That he wallowed at home in pollution with his harlots and raged abroad with the bloud and slaughter of the innocent Ockam himselfe in the first part of his Dialogues lib. 5. cap. 16. confesseth that a wicked and an Atheisticall life blinds the understanding and prepares a way for the entertainment of the vilest heresies How true is this of the Romish Prelates who could not possibly swallow down those prodigious errours and severall kinds or species of Idolatry abhorred of the very Moores and Turks That taking from the Commandements one that adding to the Articles of the Creed twelve that robbing the people of the Cup that depriving God of his honour by praying to men and women departed that trampling of Christs infinite merits under their prophane feet by their own merits and a number of other falshoods were not their judgements poysoned by their horrible lusts and other crying sins The Turks themselves boast at this day that they first learn'd their Sodomie from the Italians and that disorderly brood in Italy may as truly vaunt that they first learn'd that abomination from those amongst them in orders Was there ever or shall there ever be not onely amongst the Papists but amongst the Lutherans and Pseudo-Lutherans any Prelate or other Ecclesiasticall person that did or shall violently cite accuse suspend fine imprison deprive or murther any godly Minister or other pious Christian who was not or will not be amongst other vices guilty of that brutish sin of lust And 't is possible though the back-door be kept never so secret yet God shall at last in his judgement reveale it to the world as he doth often punish them with that loathsom and infamous disease commensurate to that sin with which that notable persecutor Doctor Weston in Queen Maries dayes in England was so unconcealably smitten as he was ordinarily branded by a beastly nickname not beffiting modesty to expresse SECT. XVII THe fruitfull seed-time of severall vices and of lust especially in the Popish Prelacie and Clergie brings in a large encrease in the Laity also to fill up the reaping time or harvest and not onely their lust and Epicurisme but their malice against the truth and thirsting after the bloud of the professors thereof like a contagious gangrene hath likewise infected especially since the yeare 1500. the vicious and prophane lay-Papists themselves What was Escovedo the great Instrument of the King of Spains cruelties against the Evangelicall party in the lower Germany but a lump of lust which in the end proved fatall to him But as the horrible massacre committed in France in severall places in the yeare 1572. is not to be paralleld in respect of the treachery and inhumanity of it in any Story of the most barbarous Nations of the world so it will not be amisse seeing the examples of this kinde would else prove endlesse to confine our selves with taking a summary view of the chief undertakers in that master-piece of hell which was never in any possibilitie to be equalled since but with the Romish Powder-plot in England had it succeeded To begin with Paris it selfe the murtherers there were for the most part brutish and lustfull souldiers or prophane varlets of the scumme of the Citie their leaders were indeed more noble but lesse vertuous The Dukes of Guise and Aumale Albert Gondy Earle of Rets Tavanne and others of them having been bred up in lusts revellings and other Aulicall deviations The place that came neerest to Paris in the cruelties of their murthers was the Citie of Lyons where the numbers of the slaine and massacred were so great as their bodies being cast into the river Rosne corrupted and stained the streame the violence whereof carrying them downe upon heaps to Tornou and the inhabitants not knowing what they were but fearing an invasion by enemies or robbers assembled themselves in armes together for their mutuall defence The chief abetters and ring-leaders of which butchery Monsieur de Thou himselfe confesseth to have been Boidon Mornieu and Clou three of the most wicked and vilest varlets that a Kingdome could harbour which Boidon was after executed at Clermont in Auvergne and if Merniue escaped a shamefull end yet doubtlesse he deserved it as well as his fellow-persecutor having before as witnesseth Serranus procured the murther of his own father At Tholouse also a few dayes after there was a great slaughter of the godly committed but by whom not by the better
unreasonable French Papists being true limbs of the Romish Synagogue whose faith was then faction and whose Religion was then rebellion would embrace no conditions of peace no offers of pacification from their own undoubtedly lawfull and warlike King as long as he continued in the open profession of that truth in which he had been educated under Joan D'Albret hereditary Queen of Navarre his royall and godly mother who also upon her death-bed had expresly charged him never to recede from it This brave Prince seeing nothing but an utter ruine threatened to his kingdome of France either by cantonizing it into Provinces or setting a forainer on the Throne which Charles Lorainer Duke of Maine had out of some ambitious and self-respects of his own a while opposed and prevented in the yeer 1593. submitted himself to a publike recidivation which though it brought on an outward peace to that Realme yet was the King himself never freed from continuall Treasons and Conspiracies hatched against him in the dens and nests of the Jesuites till at the last he perished under one of them to the irreparable losse not only of France but likewise of all Christendome Neither did the Papists cease to vilifie his very act of reconciling himself to their Church saying as Monsieur de Thou himself confesseth that either his conversion was fained as it had been before in the yeer 1572. and that a false Catholike would do more hurt in their Church then a true Heretique or else that he loved the Crown of France better then he did the kingdome of Heaven that to gain that without any inward convincement would turn from one Religion to another SECT. XXV AFter this martiall Prince had deserted the Protestant Religion to the great astonishment and excessive griefe of all the Professors of the Gospel both at home and abroad What did his French Subjects of the Helvetick Confession instantly rebell against him and deny him due and lawfull obedience as his Popish Subjects had done before Nothing lesse but all the disobedience they shewed to him or expressed towards him consisted in humble supplications and Remonstrances that they might still enjoy the publique libertie of their Consciences and he as graciously yeelded to their just and Christian Petitions and all the time he raigned never forgat their cause or prayers or suffered any of his bloudy Prelates or Jesuited Counsellors to molest vex cite fine suspend deprive or imprison any of them and much lesse to butcher them or draw bloud from them because he knew every one of those acts are essentially true and down-right persecution as well as shedding their blouds onely there is a graduall difference in the Martyrdomes of the sufferers as well as in the cruelty of the destroyers As strange was the example of Henry the eight of England who led by the advice of some of his Sycophanticall Popish Prelates thought to have established the Romish Religion without admitting the influence of the Papacy whose unerring spirit is to that Synagogue like the soule to the body or the Sunne to the firmament But he soone saw his error and would doubtless had he lived have made that integrall and saving Reformation which his Royall Sonne so piously finished for he himselfe and his new Popery were more abhorred by the Bishop of Rome and his Vassalls as a monstrous and inconsistent Church then the Princes of Germanie themselves who had made a rationall and intire defection from that man of sonne For the Pope and his Conclave employed Cardinall Poole Henry the Eighths neare kinsman as their Ambassadour to Charles the fifth the Emperour to exhort and perswade him instantly to invade the King of Englands Dominion rather then to make warre against the Turke himselfe And the reason why the Pope was so vehement in his prosecution against that King doth palpably and fully appeare from the very words ensuing of the Decree of Pope Boniface the eighth in his Extravagants set forth by himselfe in the eighth yeare of his Papacy about the yeare 1300. Subesse Romano pontifici saith he omni humanae creaturae declaramus dicimus definimus pronunciamus omnino esse de necessitate salut is We declare define and pronounce that it is necessary for every one that is to be saved to be subject to the Pope of Rome The same doctrine doth the Bull of Pope Pius the fifth bearing date there in the yeare 1564. the Romish Catechisme set out a little after doth maintain and confirme in the tenth eleventh and twelfth Sections thereof in their exposition of the twentieth Article of their new Creed to which Creed their Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks are compelled to sweare that they hold it to be the true Catholick faith it being strongly disputed for also by Suarez in his first booke and twelfth Chapter against the Lutherans by Gregorie de Valentia in his Analysis lib. 6. cap. 1. and by Bellarmine in his third booke and fifth Chapter of the Church Militant That though any Prince Prelate Priest State or Church should receive all the other parts of the Romish faith Religion abolishing the doctrine and discipline of the Protestants and should onely deny the Popes Supremacy and subjection to him yet they should still remaine damnable and wicked hereticks So as the light of the Sunne is not more cleare then that the Pope in this one particular imitates God himselfe hating more a linsey-woolsey mungrell halting Popish Protestant then a true and zealous one Blessed therefore are those Monarchs Princes and States who preserve the Evangelick truth without the least intermixtures of false doctrine and Pontificall additions for to halt between light and darknesse and to intermix Idolatrous actions or Popish errors with saving truths will necessarily draw on the ruine of the godly and the hatred of the Papacy and bring downe Gods judgements as causally as an absolute entire and plenary defection and recidivation And then if the Popes headship be once admitted a volume would not suffice how not onely every proud Prelate but even every Popish Priest might trample on the Soveraignes Crowne and Dignitie murther their fellow-subjects and be guilty of a thousand other villanies without dreading or regarding the punishment of the Temporall sword SECT. XXVI MAtthew Paris the Monke of St Albanes a witnesse without exception doth truly relate a pithy Story to shew the ancient deplorable and base state and condition of the English Kings under the Papall tyranny That Pope Innocent the 4th in the year 1253. in the 37th yeare of Henry the third being set in his Conclave in the middle of his Cardinalls after mature deliberation and advisement upon a very small and trifling occasion brake out into this vehement Interrogation Nonne Rex Anglorum saith he noster est vafsallus ut plus dicam mancipium qui possumus eum nutu nostro incarcerare ignominiae mancipare That is Is not the King of England our vassall or to say more is he not our slave who have power as often as wee please either to mue him up in prison or to expose him to ignominy Justly therefore did Henry the eight of England free himselfe from this Papall Tyranny and if he had been possibly sensible of those bodily pangs or inward remorses and horrors upon his death-bed which the Papists mention yet could not these divine flagellations be imputed to his defection from Rome and error as they pretend but to his shedding of so much innocent bloud of Gods Saints by the instigation of his sanguinary Prelates For in France after that barbarous and cruell Massacre in the yeare 1572. upon the eighth day of November the same yeare there appeared a dreadfull Comet touching which some learned Protestant immediately published an elaborate and exquisite Poem presaging that it was Gods Herald or Messenger to denounce his judgement shortly to ensue upon that Kingdome for their newly perpetrated inhumane butcherie His verses were 〈◊〉 dispersed when there suddainly broke out in Poitou a new 〈◊〉 and before unknowne disease commonly called the Poitâ—vin Cholick which wasted that goodly Kingdome for above thirty yeares after It was accompanied with so many extreame paines and torments not onely in the outward parts of the body but in the inwards and vitals also as it drew on divers horrid convulsions and in many blindnes it self before they dyed The strange originall the hidden nature and those unparalleld torments it produced sometimes resembling the very stabs and gashes made with swords and poygnards gave all impartiall judgements just ground to conclude it to be the finger of God himself in punishing the mercilesse murthers of his dear Saints And a blessed warning it may be to all Christian Kingdoms and States that a seasonable remedie to stop the growing of the plague pestilence and other severall diseases and judgements may questionlesse be applyed by inhibiting and abolishing the power and malice of such Popish Prelates as count it their chiefest solace to waste and persecute the pious and godly Protestants that so the true Catholick Church might againe flourish as it did in the Primitive times under learned religious sober faithfull preaching Pastors and Ministers Which incomparable blessing the Divine Providence vouchsafed to the Scottish French and Helvetick Churches upon their first Reformation The Printer to the Reader I Am here courteous Reader instead of troubling thee with an Index of the Errata to give thee notice that so great care hath been used in this second Impression as it needs none neither was it my fault but my mis-fortune that the first had so many greater errours as well as lesser slips for I had the use of a very imperfect Copie transcribed from the Originall by two or three severall hands in some hast by which I was mis-led almost in every Section Those errours and such as escaped the Presse are now amended to thy hand FINIS * Lutherus paulò ante mortem ageâ— cum Philâ—ppo Melancthone fatetur in negotio Coenaeâ—n mium esse factum c. Dr Rainoldus prelectione 4a. in lib. Apocryphos p. 53. Col. 1. Et Orat. Isaac Bootii Vesalii de controversiis Sacramentariis Edit. Basilere Ao Dm. 1601. ad Calcem Polani Analys. in Hoâ—â—seam p. 405. * John Dudley Duke of Northumberland The late inhumane maâ— sacre and buâ—chery in Ireland hath since exceeâ—ed it