sagacious man alive First they proceeded against any person they suspected without accuser witnesse or proofe and fettered his eares with so many Questions to be answered unto upon oath and with so many severall examinations at severall times that at last as John de Monluce Bishop of Valence well observed of the Spanish Inquisition in the yeer 1562. that it was Decipula ad vexandos bonos illaâ— queandas conscientias Though hee came into their clutches unjustly suspected yet he was sure never to escape their griping talons justly acquitted A second invention was to adde many new matters to be confessed as matters of faith which were before left as matters of liberty and fact either to hold or not to hold and in this particular did that fatall Conventicle of Trent so blasphemously transcend the bounds of all sobriety as to adde twelve new Articles of faith to the ancient Creed to be believed upon pain of damnation and to this they commonly adjoyned as a slip or branch of it adjuration of all former truths or at least a Recantation Miserable experience hath taught the Lutherans and Pseudo-Lutheran in Germany the tyrannie of the Romanists in this particular who having assisted them to ruine those godly Protestants in the Empire of the most sound and Orthodox Helvetick or French confessions did as a reward of their treacherie finde them more implacable against them inforcing upon them a most dangerous and blasphemous abjuration then against the others These two former wayes of Inquisition went yet no further then the tongue but the next that followed included the hands also and compelled subscription to many false blasphemies and dangerous heresies Thus the Lutherans of Saxonie desiring to root out all the godly Ministers amongst them of the purer Confessions would have them subscribe to those two portentuous and monstrous errors of Consubstantiation and Ubiquity And it was a notable Machiavilian policy of charles the ninth of France who having enforced the consciences of the King of Navar and Prince of Conde in the yeer 1572. by the cruell murther of divers in their sight and by threatning death to themselves to cause them to write to Pope Gregorie the thirteenth by their Letters under their own hands that both their conversion to Popery and abjuration of the truth had been gratefull and voluntary But the fourth and last invention is a down-right and never failing way either of discovering the godly or of shipwracking their consciences being one of those sins Divines call Peccata vastantia Conscientiam and that is their enforcing them to adore their severall Idolls by bowing to and towards their hee-Saints and shee-Saints Altars Reliques Crucisixes and their great Moloch of the Masse This skill they learnt from the Heathens themselves who to avoid multiplicitie of Interrogations with the first holy and Primitive Christians who abhorred the placing of Images in their publique Temples and Oratories they asked them in a few words Will you sacrifice to the Image Charles the ninth of France never demanded of Henry de Clermont Prince of Conde whether he would turne Papist but will you goe said he to Masse He knew raw flesh to be harder for a true Protestant to digest then all the other parts of Popery And doubtless he that will adore and bow unto or towards an Image the Sacrament an Altar a Communion Table or any other creature where the bowing is not meerly Civill will never stumble at any other part or point of Popery but may safely passe to Rome or Rhemes Oh that the Papists could but see their own vanity in bowing to and adoring the Wafer Cake as God! For they confesse it is not transsubstantiated into Christs flesh unlesse the Priest that consecrate intend to turne and change it And what then if the Priest be so ignorant as many be that he know not the words at which his quu or turne is come by his imagination onely to worke a miracle what if his minde be roving about his necessary affaires or more unnecessarie and vainer thoughts usuall with them that reade one particular often over and so inadvertently he forget to joyne his intention to the words of Consecration Doubtless these cases and divers besides might be instanced in which the Priest hath often and doth daily faile to create his Saviour blasphemy I confesse positively to affirme for want of meere advertency and premeditation within the rules of the Romish Synagogue it selfe And then what follows but formall and materiall Idolatry by their owne confessions when they adore it So as should the Papists themselves see a Protestant Prelate or Minister bowing to and adoring the Elements of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper before or after Consecration he could not but account him a Poishly affected Priest belonging to his owne Church or an absolute Idolater For in the 29th Article of Religion published by the Church of England agreeing expresly with the Helvetick and French Confessions it is plainly let downe That Transubstantiation or any change of the substance of Bread and Wine is repugnant to the plaine words of the Scripture overthroweth the nature of the Sacrament and hath given occasion to many superstitions That the body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper of the Lord onely after an heavenly and spirituall manner And that the meane whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith And that the Sacrament was not by Christs Ordinance reserved carried about lifted up or worshipped So the Article of the Church of England When therefore any Papist shall see his Masse celebrated by any English Divine with Elevation and Adoration or bowing to and towards it both gestures being condemned by the doctrine of that Church he must either within and by the rules of his own Church give him up for an adaquate Idolater in giving adoration to the substances of Bread and Wine which action the Romanists abhorre and condemne or else in charitie suppose howsoever in outward shew he seem an heretick yet in truth he is a good Catholick and did intend in and by the words of Consecration to make his Saviour and so supposing his body to be really there before him doth adore and bow to it The Lutherans condemne the Popish Transubstantiation the Jesuites deride the Lutherans Consubstantiation and Ubiquitie and both justly But should they heare of any subtle wittall that hath in theso dayes found out a third and more sublime invention out of the Bush that the man in the Moone carries at his back and can finde Christs body in the Sacrament as really and naturally as it was in the Virgins wombe but yet will not say he is bodily there either Con Sub or Trans they would most justly hisse him out of their Churches and Schooles Doubtlesse the Popish Transubstantiation is of the three the most rationall and profound error because that being accompanied with a supposed Miracle and may be
thirty millions of money upon those fruitless designs and not gained a foot of ground in either of those Realmes he lost a great part of the Seventeen Provinces with whom having broken the Oath solemnly sworne to them upon his Inauguration they by assistance of England and France freed themselves from his unjust oppression and tyranny Neither did the divine Justice let him so escape but raised a fire in his own house so as the Jeast of Augustus touching Herod might well be verified in him That it had been better to have been his swine then his sonne For whereas he had issue by Mary his first wife the daughter of John the third of that name King of Portugall one onely sonne called Charles a Prince of admirable towardlinesse he during the life of Englands unhappy Mary his second wife treated a marriage for his said sonne with Elizabeth the eldest daughter of Henry the second of France During the treaty Mary his wife dying he marries the Princesse Elizabeth himselfe intended for his sonne they both often in private after never forgetting their old affection lament their unhappy losse each of other the sonne also distasts his Fathers cruelties and the butcheries of his Inquisitors This enraged his jealous Father who having in the yeare 1568. first imprisoned him within a few dayes after poysoned him in a dish of broath His Mother in Law followed him within a few moneths after sent out of the world by the same kind hand and meanes say the French Writers the violence of the poyson causing her to miscarry also by an abortion And then was Philip the Father put to seek out a fourth wife and having married Anne the daughter of Mary his own naturall sister he had issue by her Ferdinand and James both cut off by death in their Infancy and Philip who being the onely issue of this incestuous Match lived to inherit his Fathers Dominions though not the full measure of his cruelties having been perhaps forewarned by his sad and loathsome end to pursue a more milde and peaceable Government Rodolph the second of that name Emperour of Germany not following the steps of the wise Maximilian his Father but of the foresaid Philip his Brother in Law sought by all secret and hostile means to enervate and destroy Religion in the Empire What got he by it but to have the curse of the Scripture to fall upon him That the Elder Brother should serve the younger for Matthias the Arch-Duke of Austria raising an Army in the yeere 1608. and joyning his Forces with those of the oppressed Protestants in Bohemia hemmed up his brother Rodolph in Prague got the Kingdom of Hungary from him in possession the Empire in reversion and left him only the robes and complements of Majesty which notorious affront he did not long over-live nor ever had the means or power to revenge SECT. XI IF wee passe out of Spain and Germany from the House of Austria into France to consider the sad successes of the Princes of the Valesian line upon their hatred and persecution of Religion wee shall see so many instances of Gods just indignation against them as they may not only leave to all posterity a just ground of admiration but save us the labour also of searching any further back into the elder Histories of Gods judgements powred out on the persecuting Emperours in the Primitive times Henry the second of France was meanly married to Katherine de Medices the Niece of Pope Clement the seventh during the life of Francis the Dolphine his elder brother afterwards poysoned That prudent Prince Francis the first his Father deceasing hee succeeded him in his Throne and Purple and swayed the French Scepter divers yeers with much tranquillity and happinesse till loathing the coiture of his Queen unfit indeed for a Princes bed he grew highly enamoured on Pictavia of Valence a woman of exquisite beauty and good extraction with whom hee long after lived in continuall advowtrie and was by her enticed to the persecution and slaughter of the Protestants in the yeere 1553. that so by the confiscation of their lands and goods shee might enrich her self and her kindred This persecution set a period to all his former victories and was followed the next yeere with the losse of the City of Senis in Italy to the Spaniard the death of that gallant old Generall Leo Strozzi by a base hand and the overthrow of the French Army by James de Medices In the yeer 1556. the violence of persecution was again renewed against the Professors of the Truth and the very next yeer following as before God again gave up the French Army to the slaughter of the Spaniards and the Dutch at the fiege and battell of St. Quintins in which there were about 3000. slain upon the place and many of them signall men and the Town soone after taken in by assault Annas Duke of Memorancie himself the Constable of France Gasper de Colignie Earle of Caestilion Admirall of France the Marshall of St Andrew the Duke of Longevile and a number of other great Peers were taken prisoners In summe the losse and slaughter was so great and fatall to the French as it well-neer equalled that victory obtained by the Duke of Bourbon at the battell of Pavia in Italy against Francis the first his Father yet Henry the second still shuts his eyes against the cause of all these losses and having his heart already cauterized by lust he not only caused the godly to be committed to the flames but would needs view their torments himself as a pleasing spectacle and had conspired and combined with Philip the second of Spain his new Sonne in Law for the utter ruine and finall subversion of Geneva Nay but a few houres before his death in the yeer 1559. Lodowick Faber and Annas Burgus two Senators of Paris because they had spoken a little freely for the innocency and piety of the Protestants in the open Senate were imprisoned upon his expresse command in the Bastile in the same City by Gabriel Earle of Mongomery one of the Captains of his Guard and the persecution against all others of the same profession grew hot and furious when the King upon the 29th of June the same yeere running at Tilt with that very Earle of Mongomery and neer the very Baslile where the Senators remained prisoners was struck with a splinter of Mongomeries speare through his eye into his brain and never had the happinesse to speak any one word after though he survived the wound a few dayes or to acknowledge his former lust and cruelty Had the Papists but such an instance of Gods immediate providence in vindicating their cause we should soon heare of one true miracle amidst so many false and adulterate But if wee further looke to Gods hand that followed this Prince in his posterity it will yet seem the greater Miracle for of five sons hee had all except one died without lawfull issue to survive them
which assured him those cruelties should make him an absolute Monarch did help to absolve him of his Monarchy He had his punishment first his mother his two brethren the Cardinal Duke of Guise that had not only joyned with him in it but encouraged him to it they still survived him and for ought men saw were firmly stablished in much safety and prosperity though Guise might have been warned by the death of Claude Duke of Aumale his brother slain at the siege of Rochel in the yeare 1573. The first act by which Henry the third the new French King and brother and heir of Charles deceased discovered his impotency of spirit and want of judgement was his clandestine and sudden stealing out of Poland where he had been but a few moneths before elected and crowned King This was the first unfortunate step of his following his mothers weak Dictates and rejecting the able advises of his own Councell But her next instructions which shee as fatally gave him as he weakly pursued being to root out the Professors of the truth with fire and sword involved him and his kingdome into innumerable miseries The good Emperour Maximilian the second in the Kings passage out of Poland through Germany and the Venetian State during his stay there gave him both of them more faithfull counsell earnestly advising him to maintain the former Edicts of Pacification and not to enforce the consciences of men in matter of Religion The same opinion was generally held by his wisest Counsellers and by all sober and discreet Romanists at home who saw plainly that the Protestants encreasing was the onely meanes now left under heaven in time at length to draw the Pope and his Conclave to yeeld to some reformation of the Church which it exceedingly needed But other Papists there were of loose and Atheisticall lives as Lewes Lorainer Cardinall of Guise Henry Lorainer his elder brother Duke of Guise Renate Villoclare a man saith incomparable Monsieur de Thou fatally preferred to this Kings attendance by his mother and divers others who perswaded the King to break the former Edicts of Pacification and never to sheath his sword till he had utterly ruined the Protestants of France whom some of their foul-mouthed fellow-brethren Protestants of this age have stiled French Puritanes and would perhaps had they lived in his time have joyned their ghostly advices with those of the Cardinall of Guise for the utter extirpation of all such as dissented in judgement or practice from themselves in matter of Ceremony I have often wondred in the perusall of the story of this King whose troublesome raign did necessitate his frequent consultations that when divers advices were propounded he ever pitched upon the worst and most fatall to himselfe But I found the two main causes of it to be first his blind and inveterate hatred of the truth and secondly his weak and degenerate spirit by which the House of Guise the Arch-enemies of the Gospel became at the last so potent and triumphed so notoriously over his impotency as they forced him to seek to those very Protestants for support against whom himself had taken a most wicked and solemn oath as the head of a faction amongst his own Subjects for their utter subversion Infinite almost was the treasure he spent upon his Minions and pleasures his very expences for maintenance of his dogs onely in that age amounting unto twenty thousand pounds yearely at least but most was exhausted in the prosecution of his civill wars against the Protestants and his servile ancillating therein to the ambition of others Guise and his faction now grown strong and assured of support from Philip the second of Spain after his expelling the King out of Paris and heaping a world of other insolent affronts upon him was drawn by him in the yeare 1588. to the Assembly then held at Blois he came thither with Lewes Lorainer Cardinall of Guise his brother and Charles Prince of Jenvile his son upon the same royall assurance of safety with which Charles the ninth had by his advice deceived the Protestants before the inhumane massacre in the yeare 1572. And now let all Popish and Popishly addicted Pseudo-Lutherans who make it a sport to fine imprison suspend vex and impoverish their fellow-Christians for the lightest matter draw neer and stand amazed at Gods secret judgements For during this Assembly at Blois was this Henry Duke of Guise slaughtered against the publike faith given him not onely within the Castle of Blois but in that very room in which sixteen yeares before he had advised the bloudy massacre of Paris to be committed and executed Two circumstances also that attended his fatall minute do adde much horror to the punishment it selfe The first that he was but new risen from the bed of his adulterate lust the very morning he was murthered having not been able to conquer the chastity of a Gentlewoman attending the Queen-mother before that night and therefore was so eager upon reaping the fruits of his long fiege as he repaired not to the Councel-chamber till he was often sent for and scarce ready The second in the manner of his first wound which was given him in his throat and caused immediately the bloud so abundantly to stream out of his mouth as he never had time once to call on God for mercy or forgivenesse but spent the last minute of his life in the revenging himself on his murtherers A little after the Cardinall of Guise his brother a great gamester at Cards and Dice perished likewise in the same Castle of Blois by a violent death Katherine de Medices the Queen-mother who had been the chief cause for neer upon thirty yeers before her death of the shedding so much innocent blood in France being present at the same time in the Castle of Blois stormed secretly that so great an action should be entred into and gone through without her advice and when she understood that Charles Lorainer Duke of Maine was escaped being the younger brother of the murthered Duke of Guise presaged to the King her son the sad issue of that rash attempt which he interpretting as it seems to be rather the expression of her wishes then her fears and having by many wofull experiences seen the effects of her Italian revengefull spirit took a course to pacifie her wrath for not long after she there ended her unhappy life by poyson saith Elias Reusner in the same Castle also where she held the first secret and bloody Councell for the execution of the foresaid inhumane massacre Francis her youngest son died before her upon the tenth day of June 1584. in the one and thirtieth yeer of his age of so violent a poyson ministred to him doubtlesse by some of the Hispaniolized Guisards as it caused his very blood to gush out of his body in severall places the sight of which purple streams might well call upon him to remember with what inhumane triumph he trampled on the bloody streets
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
a generall Councell were called and further order taken for the liberty of Religion This godly Prince though Cesâ—rs captive could never be drawn to subscribe to it and when those two subtile Perenots Nicholas Cardinall Granvellan the Father and Anthony the Bishop of Arras his son had used many arguments to perswade him What saith hee would you draw me to I am convinced the Religion I now live in to be the truth and should I outwardly make profession of any other I should but dissemble with God and the Emperor and so draw neer to that unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost with which answer Charles the fifth himself was so pleased as he more respected and honoured the Duke ever after What this pious Prince foresaw and avoided too many by lamentable experience have found true and repented who having abjured the truth for fear and felt but a while the horror of an afflicted and wounded conscience have hasted to those Popish Officers as divers in England did in Queen Maries time where their abjurations and recantations remained and having gotten sight of them have rent them into many pieces and joyfully imbraced not only their Irons but the stake it self as a far more easie suffering then what they before felt and indured Had Charles the 9th of France but followed the good counsell was openly given him in the Parliament at St. Germans the first yeer of his reign That the differences of Religion neither ought nor ever could be composed by blood and cruelty but by Gods Word and seasonable conferences he had never made his raign and memory so infamous to posterity as now it is nor drawn the divine vengeance upon himself by shedding so much innocent blood as afterwards he did For as divers were butcher'd by him in that barbarous massacre at Paris in the yeer 1572. so Henry de Clermont commonly sirnamed Bourbon Prince of Conde was some days after the generall slaughter of the Protestants committed there appointed by him to die but his pardon being obtained by Elizabeth a name it seems only proper to gracious and excellent soveraignesses his Queen one of the daughters of the good Emperor Maximilian although Conde knew it not hee comes to him and tels him of three things he must elect one either to heare Masse to die or to suffer perpetuall imprisonment the young Prince no whit abashed makes him this sudden and brave answer God forbid Sir that I should choose the first but of the two latter I am ready to submit to that which your Highnesse shall appoint There is as rare a story of the Lady Jane Gray eldest daughter of Henry Gray Duke of Suffolk not much inferiour in birth and extraction to Conde himself by her mothers side who was grandchilde and co-heire to Edward the 4th King of England related by a Gentleman and a Courtier as it seems for I finde not his name under Queen Mary in the yeer 1553. who dined at Mr. Partriges house within the Tower with her whilest she remained a prisoner there which narration well deserving to be transmitted to posterity doth here ensue out of a Manuscript History of a great part of that Queens time the very Autograph it self being in my Library written by the said Gentleman with his own hand some few words being added which were at first casually omitted by his haste or inadvertency in penning of it and some other words changed and written according to the manner of speech now used On Tuesday the 29th of August I dined at Partriges house with my Lady Jane c. After that we fell in discourse of matters of Religion and she asked what he was that preached at Pauls on Sunday before and so it was told her to be one I pray you quoth she had they Masse in London Yea forsooth quoth I in some places It may be so quoth she it is not so strange as the sudden conversion of the late * Duke for who would have thought said shee hee would have so done It was answered her Perchance hee thereby hoped to have had his pardon Pardon quoth shee Wo worth him hee hath brought me and our stock in most miserable calamity and misery by his exceeding ambition but for the answering that hee hoped for life by his turning though other men be of that opinion I utterly am not for what man is there living I pray you although hee had been innocent that would hope for life in that case being in the field against the Queen in person as Generall and after his taking so hated and evill spoken of by the Commons and at his coming into prison so wondred at as the like was never heard by any mans time who can judge that hee should hope for pardon whose life was odious to all men But what will yee more like as his life was wicked and full of dissimulation so was his end thereafter I pray God I nor no friend of mine die so should I who am young and in the flower of my yeeres forsake my faith for the love of life Nay God forbid much more hee should not whose fatall course although hee had lived his just number of yeers could not have long continued But life was sweet it appeared so hee might have lived you will say hee did not care how indeed the reason is good for hee that would have lived in chains to have his life belike would leave no means unattempted but God be mercifull to us for hee saith Whoso denyeth him before men hee will not know him in his Fathers Kingdome How justly may the masculine constancie of this excellent Lady whose many vertues the pens of her very enemies have acknowledged rise up in judgement against all such poore spirits who for feare of death or other outward motives shall deny God and his truth and so crown the Trophees of the Antichristian or mongrill adversaries by their lamentable apostasie For what shee here spake Christianly shee within a few moneths after performed constantly her life being taken from her on the 12th day of February 1553. having lived first to see Mr. Harding her fathers Chaplain revolted to Antichrist to whom she wrote an effectuall Letter of admonition and reproof published by Mr. Fox in his Acts and monuments p. 1291. not unworthy the perusall of the ablest Christians and greatest Doctors SECT. IX AS it is against the dictamen of reason to make matter of Religion a capitall crime so it is against the rules of policy it self in respect that heresie and falshood which would in time die of themselves are thereby increased propagated and so the end for which force and violence are used is no wayes obtained thereby This was verified in the death of Prisciliian the heretique of old by which his followers were mightily encreased and having before but reverenced him as a holy man did afterwards adore him as a Martyr The present age verifies it in the death of Michael Servetus the Spaniard and