govern'd under their own proper and peculiar Justices that if any Jew dyed whose heire became a Christian he should inherit all the estate of his Ancestors without any further sine or composition with the Prince The Master of the Rolls-house in London and other places in other Cities of the Kingdome were appointed for the entertainment of those Christian converts and were thence called Domus Conversorum All which may clearly be gathered out of those Records of the Exchequer commonly called The great Pipe Rolles and the Communiâ— Rolles By which allurements some of the Jewes out of malice to their fellowes or having committed some penall offence to escape the punishment practised amongst themselves or els for lucre sake the sin of avarice being connaturall to most of them were baptized and became Christians outwardly without any due instruction in the Christian faith before-hand and being convinced also that the Papists adoring or bowing to and towards Images Altars Reliques and the like trumpery was absolute Idolatry against the second Commandement they proved as commonly the Jewes and Christians at this day do when they turn Turks the wretchedest varlets in the whole Kingdome What were the poor Indians wont to say when to avoid the Spaniards extreame and inhumane cruelties they were drawn to their Masses but that since they became Christians they had learned to swear and drink It was an excellent and just sentence which one of the Grand Seignienrs pronounced against divers hundreds of Christians that falling down-before him made declaration that they had deserted their Sacra and given up their names to Mahomet he inquired of them why they did so and they confessing plainly that they did it to be freed from those many taxes contributions and oppressions which they before groaned under he rejected their enforced conversion for outward ends and commanded their taxes and levies to be continued This Heroick action of the Turkish Monarch was not much short of that policie of one of the ancient Christian Emperours who having his Army mixed of Christians and Pagans and desiring to discover who of the first were little better then those of the latter made like another Jehu a publike Declaration for the restoring of Paganisme upon which divers of the Christian Commanders shewing themselves forward to desert the truth and to follow the stream and time he presently reproved and cashier'd them alledging that all such were unworthy to serve any Prince that had proved unfaithfull to that divine Majesty by which Princes rule SECT. VIII AS it is against the Dictamen of Christian Charity to make matter of Religion a capitall crime or to enforce the conscience without a full and clear conviction from the profession of one Religion to another or to any new burthensome Ceremonies to be superadded in the publick worship of God although the Religion it self remain the same it was before in the generall so it is against the rules of Reason it self This was confessed by Henry 3. of France one of the most impotent Princes that ever swayed that Scepter and most inveterate enemy that ever the Protestants had having been instructed to hate betray and persecute them by Katherine de Medices his bloudy mother even from his very Cradle yet when James Clement a Jesuited Monk had sheathed a knife in his bowels and that hee saw himself neer the minute in which hee was to give an account of all his cruelties to the supreme Judge of Heaven and earth he made an effectuall speech to the chief Commanders of his Army being most of them Romanists To acknowledge and obey the King of Navar then a Protestant as their lawfull Soveraigne and the lineall heire of the French Crown and to know this undoubted truth for the future That Religion which is distilled into the souls of men by God himself cannot he enforced by man The same truth likewise and almost in these very words did the Lord Brederode and the other Protestants of the lower Germany alledge for their just excuse in their united Apologie published in the yeere 1566. and further added That if the Papists did conceive their Religion to be the truth they should in sieed of blood fines imprisonments and exilings follow the seasonable advice of wise Gamaliel and try a while whether the Protestants separation from them were of God or not for otherwise if by force and tyrannie they did compell them to professe and practice those actions in Gods worship which they accounted abominable and did also restrain them from performing those holy duties towards God wherein they were convinced the truth of his service consisted their consciences must needs be shipwracked and undone and so in stead of making them new Converts they should leave them Atheists and Libertines This very objection also in the yeere 1572 did Katherine de Medices of Florence then Queen mother of France though she little practised the truth of the Consequence make in the Treaty of marriage of Francis de Valois her youngest sonne with Queen Elizabeth of England The great rub pretended on both sides though the match was never really intended by either Queen was matter of Religion in which that glorious Virgin Monarch having given her Ambassador expresse instructions not to yeeld so far as that the Duke of Alenzon should be permitted the celebration of his Masse in private What Mr. Walsingham saith the Queen-mother upon his next audience Will your Mistresse have my Son turn Atheist and professe no Religion at all For with your Church he cannot joyn till he be further instructed and you will not suffer him to continue those Sacra by which hee hath hitherto served God what shall hee turn Heathen till you have converted him Though this unfortunate Lady did by this her wise answer discover the true madnesse of all persecutors yet did she not forbeare to bath her cruell hands for many yeers after in the blood of Gods Saints and caused many as St. Paul witnesseth of himself before his conversion to blaspheme by their ejuration of the known truth and their subscriptions to the Popish trumperies of which some that persisted in Papistry turned prodigious sinners and libertines and others with the King of Navar and Prince of Conde as soon as they got loose returned to the known truth The heroick answer of that brave Prince John Frederick Elector and Duke of Saxonie is worthy to be ingraven in leters of gold on pillars of brasse who being taken prisoner by the Emperor Charles the fifth in the yeer 1547. and threatened with present death except he would renounce and yeeld up his Electorate and Dutchie to his false and treacherous Cousin Maurice and become a Romanist yeelded readily to all the former conditions but absolutely refused the latter And when in the yeer following that wicked interim was yeelded unto by all the Princes of Germany some being driven by fear and others drawn on by flattery which was That Popery should be restored in all places till
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
Gods Word for feare lest if hee retracted them the people would suspect the rest and so fall back again by an absolute recidivation to Popery hee counted it more safe to declare his judgement in private and to leave the rooting out of those weeds by insensible degrees to his Disciples To effect which the French and Helvetian churches did readily afterwards afford the Germanes divers publike conferences But Doctor Andreas John Brentius and other Pseudo-Lutherans having suckt in the poyson of the Anabaptists the Devils Master-engine in this latter age with the Jesuites to restore Pelagianisme to the World and having added those old blasphemies that concern the advancement of mans free-will above Gods grace to Luthers new Masse as the Papists then and still in a bitter scoffe or sarcasme call it grew into so extreme an hatred against the maintainers of Gods truth both within and without Germany as they became more bitter in their invectives against them then against the Papists themselves and did even then by their false and preposterous courses threaten a ruine to themselves and the whole Euangelicall party which they have since most miserably effected and brought to passe in a great part of the Christian world which drew the King of great Britain in the yeer 1611. to remonstrate to the united States of the lower Germany upon the death of James Arminius the Anabaptist or Pseudo-Lutheran whom hee calls the Enemy of God and their electing of Vorstius into his chaire whom hee calls a blasphemer that if they did not in time prevent the growing of that pestilentiall Sect it would in the issue prove the utter ruine of their flourishing Common-wealth SECT. IV. THe Electorall House of Saxonic upon the devesting of that brave and pious Prince John Frederick the true heire by Charles the fifth and the investing of the younger House to usurp that honour hath ever since proved a greater friend to the Popish party then to the purer Churches of Christendome of the French and Helvetick confession Miurice that usurped that Dutchie and Electorate upon the incaptivating of the said Duke John Frederick his Cousin first ruined the Princes of the Smalcaldick union to which himself had subscribed and then casting an ambitious eye upon the Empire it self broke his faith with the Emperor that had raised him and having patched up that defection by the means of Eerdinand of Austria King of Bohemia afterwards setled in the Imperiall Throne he lastly perished by a violent death in a pitcht battell sought against his fellow-Protestants and left his brother Augustus to succeed him This new Electorall family aided the Leaguers in France against that victorious Prince Henry the Great They ruined and took prisoner their Cousin the Duke of Saxon Weymar the principall branch of their House in the Castle of Goth in the time of Maximilian the Emperor they put in their far-fetcht pretentions to the Dutchie of Cleeve and Juliers in our dayes and joyned their Armes with the Archduke Leopold against the Marquesse of Brandenburg and the Duke of Newburg the indubitate heires thereof whose right also was asserted by the whole Protestant party besides of Christendome These were the fruits of their miserable errors in doctrine brought in and established by James Andreas Osiander and their fellow Pseudo-Lutherans retaining still their Images and Altars in the places of their publique worship although they confesse them to minister matter of offence to many of the better learned and matter of superstition to most of the ignorant multitude Nay hence in the yeer 1580. did the Pseudo-Lutherans proceed to inforce the Ministers of Saxonie to subscribe amongst other Articles to that monstrous error of the Ubiquity of Christs body exploded with just derision by Bellarmine and all learned Papists And from enforced subscription which is ever for the most part the fore-runner of persecution they fell in the yeare 1591. upon the death of Duke Christian the best of all the Electors of the aforesaid Augustus line and race to shed the innocent bloud of that brave Gentleman and faithfull servant of the State Paulus Krelius Chancellor of that Dutchy for no other delict but because he was a known friend to the purest doctrine a stout Protector of those whom they stiled Calvinists After which followed the suspension and imprisonment of Urbanus Pierius Professor of Wittenberg and of divers other learned and godly Ministers yea within a yeare or two after such was the furious virulencie of the Inhabitants of the Town of Leipsich led by the Scholars of the Universitie there who have since in these later Germane wars fully tasted of the divine indignation as they fell upon the houses and movables of such as embraced the Helvetick Confession despoiled them of their goods and committed divers other outrages upon them But most fatall have been the effects of this last Duke of Saxonie's hovering neutrality in matter of Religion when at first he refused to be comprised in the Protestant union entred into by the Germane Princes in the yeare 1617. for their necessary safety when secondly he sided the yeare following with the Emperor Matthias against the Protestant Bohemians And thirdly when in the yeare 1620. he joyned his Armies with those of the Emperour Ferdinand the second that but a few yeares before lay hid in obscurity in his slender Patrimony at Gratz and so proved one of the chief causes of the utter subversion for ought we yet see of the Religion and Liberties of Germany For had not Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine rather aimed at the upholding of true Religion in Bohemia then at any ambitious ends of his own he had never hazarded the peace plenty and quiet he enjoyed at Heidelberg to have accepted that controversall crown at Prague and to have entred that Kingdome in a hostile manner which for above the space of twelve moneths before had been filled with warre and misery SECT. V. I Doe not finde that any higher or greater punishment was inflicted upon Hereticks themselves in the Primitive times though they remained obstinate after all other meanes used for convincing them of their errours then exile or banishment St. Austin writing to Proculianus the Donatist acknowledgeth such as erre from the truth must be drawn home by milde instruction and not by cruell enforcement And when Bishop Itacius in the yeare 383. being a man of a turbulent spirit and fierce nature had caused Priscillian the Heretique and divers of his followers to be put to death he was first condemned for that bloudy act by Thcognistus And St. Ambrose afterwards meeting with some Bishops at Triers that had partaken with Itacius in that cruell execution would not so much as entertain any communion with them Theodosius the Emperour in the Synod of Constantinople in stead of bloud and irons caused a publick dispute to be afforded the Arrians themselves although they had been before condemned by the Councell of Nice The like mercifull provision did Charles the
other Anabaptists though most necessarily cut off by the sword of the Magistrate for their blasphemous opinions and lawless Tenets tending to the utter subversion of all Civill government The Anabaptists in their Dialogues published in the English tongue in Queen Maries dayes though they craftily withdrew many of their Anarchicall Tenets agreeing almost verbatim with the workes since penned by James Arminius and the latter Anabaptists doe extoll that Servetus as a Prophet of the Lord and their numbers are at this day so increased as they constitute or make a considerable party in divers parts of Christendome But those cursed enemies of the truth that thinke by persecuting it to abolish it as they fight against God himselfe in so doing so have they heretofore and shall still in despight of all their devillish policy for the time to come increase and propagate the same This if all other Instances wanted would sufficiently appeare in that famous example of an English Schoolmaster a most zealous Papist in the dayes of King Edward the sixt who afterwards in the beginning of Queen Maries government frequenting the fires of some of the Martyrs was so convinced with hearing what they spake and seeing how chearfully they suffered as he himselfe relinquishing the former ignorance and idolatry he had so long embraced at last witnessed the truth with his own bloud Not he onely but many thousands also besides were doubtless inabled by the cleare shining of those fires to discerne the foulnesse of those mysteries of darkness under which they had been so long held captive And after her short Raigne infamoused by so much bloud-shed was expired it facilitated the way for her royall sister Elizabeth to restore the truth at an easie rate When the Executioner came behind John Hus to kindle the pile that encompassed him Come hither my friend said he and kindle it here before for had I feared what thou bringest I had not appeared at this Stake to day His death brought so incredible progresse to the true Church in Bohemia as did also that of Jerome of Prague his Contemporanie that their bloudy persecutors had just cause within a few yeares after their decease to acknowledge their own errour in having hastened their ends As fruitfull a seed-time to the Church in France proved the death of Annas Burgus a Senator of Paris in the yeare 1559. under Francis the second A man he was so vertuous and innocent in his life as some of the very enemies of the Truth laboured his delivery when he was in prison and so resolute and chearfull in his death as it incouraged thousands in that Kingdome in the constant profession of the Reformed Religion What better successe had all the bloudy executions of Ferdinand de Toledo that merciless Duke of Alva and of his new erected Bishops in the lower Germany but that the Gospel at the last got the victory over hell and all the powers of darkness Neither indeed could those cruell Inquisitors have expected other issue had they but truly considered what Religion had been and that Princes and States may command the bodies but not the soules and consciences of men Which having been once perswaded by Instruction and Information to embrace and beleeve any opinions though hereticall and therefore much more the Truth it selfe can never be driven from them but by the same meanes of a further and more cleare Instruction The godly have ever lookt upon chaines prisons racks and fires as the tryall and reward of their faith more fearing to doe evill then to suffer evill well knowing that they shall neither suffer more nor their cruell enemies be able to inflict more then God shall turne to his own endlesse glory and their everlasting good Did the Heathen Poet desire to be sent back to the Mines a life more tedious then that of the Gallyes rather then he would commend a few bad Verses contrary to his judgement Could Epicurus that impure Philosopher say of a wise man that if he were scorched in Phalaris Bull he would not be moved with it but onely cry out Dulce est ad me non attinet Or the young Stoick in Gellius to maintaine the Apathie of his Sect neither groane nor frowne in the midst of a burning feaver And shall we thinke that Gods Saints who have their reason heightened and irradiated by grace and their soules immoveably founded upon a lively and living faith will feare to lose their estates liberties and lives for the Truths sake No doubtless but as the Gold is tryed by the Furnace and cleared from the drosse so in time of persecution they shall be discerned from all hypocrites Atheists Libertines and Time-servers whatsoever SECT. X. BUt oh that Princes and Great ones would shake off those fleshflyes and Sycophants who tell them the contrary and know the Truth to be that nothing can more infamouze their raignes and memories to Posterity nothing bring more inevitable ruine to their Persons nothing finally prove so deadly a Consumption amongst their posterity as to inforce the Consciences of their Subjects by fines imprisonments subscriptions recantations depauperations and death Charles the fift having obtained the Imperiall Chaire by the money and meanes of Henry the eighth of England was the most potent Emperour that ever Germany had as long as he maintained the peace of Religion but having yeelded to the Popes instigations and prospered a while in his intended extirpation of the Truth he found at last by experience what his brave and valiant Generall Castaldus had foretold him That these violent proceedings would in the end prove fatall to himselfe For having first fled away at mid-night in a cold and rainy season from Onspruch for feare of the Protestant Army he was afterwards in stead of setling his sonne Philip in his own Chaire which he had fully intended faine to surrender up the Empire to Ferdinand his Brother who for divers moneths before had entred into a secret league with the Protestant Princes of Germany and so having lived a few yeares after in a despised and disconsolate solitude heat last ended his life very ingloriously His sonne Philip the second the most inveterate enemy of the Gospel that ever lived did not onely set up Shambles and Butcheries for Gods Saints in most of his own large Dominions by his Inquisitors but continually ayded the Rebells in France England and Ireland against their lawfull Soveraignes and plotted to invade all other Protestant Dominions in Christendome that so at last by one generall carnage of them all he and his holy Father the Pope might have shared the Christian world by a double Monarchy of the Church and Empire between them But did this bloudy Prince prosper in these his ambitious and cruell designes Certainly nothing lesse for what got he by his invading France by land England and Ireland by Sea and by his large Pensions conferred on the traytors and secret enemies of either State but that in the issue having wasted about
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
they have done for the time past since Sebastian Castellio's death they will dissent as much from learned Luther as he did from the Papists themselves And how little coherence there was between Luther and those Anabaptists of his time whom Castellio followed is apparently expressed in the very Preface it self prefixed before his Dialogues and other his Latin Works printed in the yeere 1613. where the Author of the said Preface a stout Anabaptist freely acknowledgeth that Martin Luther John Calvin and Martin Barrha did all defend Gods absolute and eternall Decree and the Power of his Grace following therein St. Augustine and falsly addeth That a way is thereby opened to a secure and loose life which inconvenience saith the same Prefacer Erasmus Roterodamus Theodore Bibliander and Sebastian Castellio fore-seeing and desiring to prevent did oppose the said doctrine and maintained free-will to be in man or an ability in and from himself without the assistance of Gods grace to do good The Pseudo-Lutherans or Anabaptists in Germany that had even overspread the whole Dominions of the Elector of Saxonie before the Enangelicall Jubilee was there celebrated in the yeer 1617. were within two yeers after the direct Instruments of ruining the Gospel it self For they mistake themselves ignorantly or are wilfully blind in the passages of that time who impute all the miseries that Germany hath now for these eighteen yeers last past groaned under to Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine his accepting of the Bohemian Crown in the yeere 1619. in respect that the Protestants of that Kingdome after the election of Ferdinand of Gratz for the King thereof in 1617. finding that he was wholly swayed by the Jesuites themselves or his Jesuited Counsellors and began to infringe the liberty of Religion there established they acquainted the Emperor Matthias therewith during whose life the said Ferdinand was not to intermeddle with the affaires of that Realme But the Emperor whether hee feared that his said Cousin of Gratz should supplant him as he had formerly done his own brother Rodolphus the second or whether out of immoderate love to him I know not neglected the Bohemians just Petitions and Romonstrances whereupon in the yeer following there being a great Assembly of them in the Chancerychamber within the Castle of Prague and some sudden alteration happening they threw out three of the Emperors Counsellors at the windows and though none of them were slain or maimed with the fall yet the Bohemians themselves took this outrage to be an offence so unpardonable as they presently prepared themselves for an offensive and defensive war elected thirty Directors to govern the Kingdome and raised two Armies to be in readinesse the one under the Earl of Thurne and the other under Ernest Count of Mansfield The Emperor also and his Cousin Ferdinand made great preparation for war nominating the Counts of Dampetre and Buequoi for the Generalls upon which there presently followed divers hot skirmishes between the forces on both sides the miserable Inhabitants of Bohemia proving already a lamentable prey to the licencious Souldier And now let any indifferent and impartiall man judge what fault or error all this time did the said Prince Elector Palatine commit Nay on the contrary the Jesuite himself confesseth in his Austrian Laurel pag. 104. that the said Prince Elector laboured by all means to have composed this difference in a Treatable and amicable way by his letters and Internuncio's till seeing the Emperors Armies notwithstanding all his intercession to have entred and wasted Bohemia their aime to be chiefly at the extirpation of Religion and himself as the prime Prince of the new Union to be obliged in honour and conscience to have a care of the Euangelicall cause hee was necessitated to joyn his Armes to theirs not refusing also the Crown being for ought hee knew most justly laid at his feet after a generall and unanimous election Could he fore-see that any Euangelicall Prince should be so Pseudo Lutheranized as to betray the whole body of the Protestant Religion and the fundamentall liberties of the Empire in Germany to the Antichristian adversary In all humane reason had the Elector of Saxonie but looked on and done nothing much more had he but assisted the Bohemians professing the same Gospel with himself that fair branch of the third family in Christendome had now flourished in those ancient regalities their Ancestors enjoyed and the Church and Empire had been as glorious and happy as now they are desolate and miserable But God that decrees all most justly and wisely for his own glory and the good of his children will I doubt not by some means though yet hidden replant again the royall branches of this Imperiall Vine as to the admiration of the whole Christian world both enemies and friends he hath hitherto supported the Royall root of those branches with patience and alacrity SECT. XIX AS the vicious and Atheisticall Popish and popishly affected Prelates and prophane Christians hate and persecute the pious Protestants more then they doe adulterers swearers perjurers or any other notorious delinquents so the moderate and vertuous Papists of both Orders abhorre their slaughters and desire their peace and freedome Sir John de Old-Castle in the time of Henry the fifth of England being convented before Thomas Arundel Archbishop of Canterbury and divers other lustfull and bloudy Prelates Whilest I was saith he a swearer a rioter and every way else vicious you never reproved me or questioned me but since I have imbraced this despised doctrine of Wicklesfe which hath taught me how to conquer my sinnes and to lead a godly and an honest life now you are enraged against me with malice and seek my destruction The same true observation was made by Annas Burgus that brave Senator of Paris in the yeare 1559. under Henry the second of France That there were many adulteries perjuries oaths and other infamous offences daily committed and already punishable by the Lawes and yet such as were guilty of all or any of those crimes were countenanced and advanced but against the Protestants all cruelty was practised who were guilty of no other offence but of imbracing the truth of the Gospel revealed unto them by the Spirit and Word of God and of discovering by the same light the horrible vices and errors of the Popish power that so there might follow an emendation To this purpose also tended that Christian advice which a person of noble extraction David Hamilton gave to his Cousin James Earle of Arran then Regent of Scotland in the yeare 1545. when Cardinall Beton would have perswaded and drawn him to have joyned with himselfe in the persecution and slaughter of the godly in that Kingdome I cannot but wonder saith he that you should give up the innocent servants of God himself against whom no crime is objected but the preaching of the Gospel into the hands and power of men most infamous for lust cruelty and all other wickednesse when