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
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
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
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
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
sort of Citizens or sober and morally vertuous men but one Turry and a number of other infamous lewd persons like himself joyned themselves together for the effecting of that bloudy execution The like villany was accomplished at the great city of Roane in Normandy by one Maronie a most infamous Ruffian and a great many other base varlets who assembled themselves to him as their ring-leader but in none of them were these two hellish sins of advoutrie and bloud more adaequately coupled together then in one Ruygaillard the masterbutcher at Angiers who having long continued an Adulterer was at last enticed by his harlot to murther his own wife Thus we see that it is not the sober and vertuous but the lustfull and vicious Papist that inveterately and irreconciliably hates the godly and sober Protestant not but that common experience teacheth us how the loose and debauched persons of either Religion do as well agree together in their plots and excesses as if there were no difference of opinion between them but that there should be such prodigious malice in the looser and erroneous Protestant against the more strict and Orthodox as to wish their extirpation rather then the conversion of the Romanists nay to joyn their armes with those of the vassals of Antichrist for the eradication and subversion of them is such a mystery of the lower region as the horrible and vast desolation of Gods true Church in our dayes gives us as much cause to lament it as the ages to come will have abundant occasion to admire it Amongst the Turks Jewes Indians Persians and the Papists themselves at this day the most zealous and holiest as they conceive them in their Religion are most esteemed and honoured and onely in the greater part of the Protestant Churches the most knowing and tenacious of the Evangelicall truth and the most strict and godly in their lives are hated nicknamed disgraced and vilified and grace which should onely adde a lustre to learning riches honours noble extraction and all other outward gifts either naturall or acquisite that alone obscureth all the rest and brings the contempt not onely of great ones but even of the scum and dregs of the multitude upon the persons so qualified Doubtlesse this shewes that the Protestant Religion where the Gospel is maintained in the power and purity of it is the very truth it self And that the Prince of darknesse seeing the greatest zealoters amongst the Turks Jews and Papists hasten on in a false and fatall course never opposeth them no more then he doth the debauched loose and Atheistical Protestant but only stirreth up all he may the hatred scorn and persecution of all sorts against those pious Christians who are convinced of the truth and by their innocent lives and godly conversations maintain and demonstrate that it undoubtedly is the true Religion which they professe SECT. XVIII LVther had scarce planted the Gospel in Germany in the yeere 1517 but within the space of some five yeers after Melchior Hofman Thoms Muncer Bernard Rotman and other Anabaptists planted there also as may be strongly collected divers Pelagian blasphemies of free-will recidivation from grace and the rest to which they joyned community of goods and the extirpation of all Monarchie and Magistracie saying Luther and the Pope were two false Prophets but of the two Luther was the worst because Luther especially laboured to advance Gods grace and to beat down the hereticall tenet of mans free-will Michael Servetus the Spaniard and Bernardin Ochinus as may probably be gathered did succeed Muncer and Rotman as the chief Doctors of that pestilentiall Sect but as may easily appear upon diligent search did cunningly conceal their dangerous doctrine of not allowing temporall Princes and Magistrates because they saw it inevitably drew upon them the necessary opposition of all Kings and well governed States Theodore Bibliander and Sebastian Castellio the Savoyard grew famous amongst their fellow Anabaptists after Servetus death and the same Castellio translated into Latin the Dialogues which the said Ochinus had written in the Dutch or German tongue which Dialogues are ordinarily at this day imprinted with the rest of Castellio's Works And in the last age from the time this Sect took its first beginning in Holland till about the yeer 1611. they knew no other name or appellation but of Anabaptists only which title also with much alacrity and confidence they assumed and appropriated to themselves in their own books they published James Arminius a flashie and shallow Divine of Leyden as may easily be evinced was so taken and overtaken with the perusall of Castellio's Dialogues and the secret conferences of some of the Anabaptists themselves as it clean turned his judgement from the truth to falshood and therefore to justifie his own apostasie and to perpetuate the memory of his new Masters labours without once doing honour to his name he re-prints his said Dialogues and other Works almost verbatim altering only the frame of them and patching them out also with some pieces he had borrowed from the Jesuites polemicall volumes against the Dominicans the latter opposing and the first defending the hereticall tenets of Pelagius the Britain as learned de Thou himself freely acknowledgeth After the death of Arminius in the yeer 1611. the name of Anabaptists by which the maintainers and asserters of those errors had for above fourscore yeers last past been known and called by as in the Articles of the Church of England published in the yeer 1552. Article 8. and elsewhere and sometimes also Anabaptists or Servetians from Michael Servetus as by the same de Thou in his story lib. 34. p. 239. began to be deserted as too odious and grosse for this learned age and by the ignorance of the Orthodox Divines who saw not the admirable use of story in their polemical Tractates they have atchieved the senslesse and new name of Arminians when poor Arminius himself took up his errors upon trust at the third or fourth hand stealing that out of Castellio which he had borrowed from Ochinus the scholar of the Spaniard Servetus And Barnevelt himself in his Apologie confesseth that he had learned those points in Germany many yeers before he knew Arminius nay as men extracted from base beginnings and advanced to high honours do commonly pretend by an adulterate and a false descent to noble ancestors so these impudent fellows are not ashamed to father their forgeries on judicious Luther himself as if there were no other difference between them and the Orthodox Protestants then was between Luther and Calvin whereas it appeared plainly in the yeer 1560. by the very confession of the Papists themselves that upon a strict inquiry then made it was found that the Protestants dissented from the Romanists in forty points of doctrine But those of the Helvetick and Augustane confessions amongst themselves but in two whereas if these new coiners do but daily increase their dangerous errors for the time to come as
in the meane time those very enemies of the truth themselves cannot deny but that the lives of such as professe this doctrine they hate are full of integrity and vertue And therefore although the prophane and bloudy Prelates could never be drawn to pitie Gods children much lesse to love them for their piety and innocency being therein more inhumane then divers of the Heathen Emperours themselves who upon information of the vertuous and harmlesse deportments of the Christians by their governours of Provinces under them did cause their persecutions to be slackned and ceased Yet have divers Princes and other moderate Pontificians in the fore-going age been moved by the upright and honest lives of Gods children to further their libertie of conscience and to abhorre the cruelties of their fellow-Romanists practised upon them Maximilian the Emperour sonne of Ferdinand the second and Francis the first the French King were hence drawn to permit unto their own Subjects freedome of conscience The Earles of Egmont and Horne though zealous Papists laboured with the Dutchesse of Parma that the low-countrey Protestants might be free from fines imprisonments and all other persecutions in respect of Religion Under Francis the second the French King in the yeare 1560. by the elaborate and learned speeches of Charles Marillack Archbishop of Vienna and John de Monâ—â—â—e Bishop of Valence freely pronounced before the King himselfe in behalfe of the French Protestants all persecution against them was for a time remitted the said Bishop amongst other particulars not fearing to affirm plainly That a great increase of the Sectaries did proceed from the ignorance and evill lives of the Bishops who having cast away the cares of their flocks had for many yeares studied to inhaunce their fines and rents and to live deliciously and loosly so as sometimes there were seene fortie of them at once together mouldering and wasting themselves in Paris in luxury and idlenesse the care of their Churches being in the meane time delegated over to young and ignorant fellowes and so the Bishops themselves becoming blind and uselesse the Parish Priest also following the example of their Diocesans were onely carefull to spoile and vex the people for their tythes and wholly unskilfull and negligent in preaching to them and that therefore it was no wonder though divers of the Nobilitie as well as of the common people did readily hearken to new opinions and doctrines The same counsell That the conscience ought not to be forced nor any to be persecuted for Religion meerly did Michael Hospitalius Chancellor of France give unto Charles the ninth the same yeare upon his new succession to the Crown after the decease of the said Francis his brother and Paulus Foxius to Henry the third in the yeare 1574. very copiously and most eloquently couched in two severall Orations inserted at large by Monsieur de Thou in his unparallel'd History in their due places who was himselfe nineteen yeares old when that horrible massacre was committed in Paris in the yeare 1572. on Saint Bartholomenes day which fell out that yeare on the Lords Day and did in his very soule abhorre the crueltie and savagenesse thereof when in his passage through the streets to Mattins that morning he encountred with divers villaines dragging along the dead body of Hierome Grolote late the Governour of Orleance all weltring with gastly wounds in his own bloud at which sight his heart relenting and mourning inwardly not daring to shed teares publickly he hastened home to the house of Christopher de Thou his father at that time the chief President of the Court of Parliament at Paris there freely to deplore and execrate that Heathenish butchery as did also the said Christopher his father Vidus Faber Pibracius John Merviller Belieureu all eminent men with all the judicious and morally vertuous Papists in the Citie who Christianly hid up and so preserved many Protestants secretly in their houses from a wretchlesse massacring nay Arman Guntald the old Marshall Biron father of Charles Duke of Biron that was beheaded in Henry the fourths time when the Deputies of Rochel repaired unto him some few weeks after that bloudy execution to treat of a peaceable accommodation of their affaires with him he shed many teares in their presence upon his execrating the authors of that cruelty and acknowledged it the great blessing of God upon him that he neither knew of it nor had any hand in it At the City of Lions also where the inhumanity of the murtherers almost equalled that of Paris Mandelot the Governour there did his best to have prevented it and in his heart with many other grave and sober Citizens of the Romish Religion utterly detested it And when the slaughtered bodies were tumbled into the River Rosne and carried down with the stream to Tornou Valence Vienne and Burg contiguous to the same River the Papists generally detested the cruelty And at Arles where for want of springs and ponds they had most use of that river-water they so much abhorred that butchery as they would neither drink thereof nor yet eat any of the fish taken therein for divers dayes after and generally in all Provence those of the Romish Religion drew out the mangled bodies out of the water and with great humanity interred them Monsieur Carragie a noble Gentleman the Governour of the great city of Robin in Normandy did likewise oppose the massacres there to the utmost of his power as did also James Benedict Lagabaston the prime Senator of Burdeaux who thereby became himself in danger to have been slain by those seditious varlets who had been at first stirred up to commit those murthers by the wicked sermons of a lustfull Jesuite named Enimund Auger Claudus Earle of Tende a descendent of the illustrious House of Savoy Governour of Provence Monsieur de Gordes Governour of Daulphinie Monsieur Sauteran Governour of Auvergne and Francis Duke of Memorancie particularly and absolutely refused to suffer any massacres to be committed in such places as were under their severall government so as the Rochellers in their Declaration set out the same yeer do acknowledge and confesse that all such Rom mists who had but any humanity left in them did in their hearts abhor and with their mouths detest those hellish outrages and cruelties And it well appeared what base varlets they generally were in most places who were the executioners of those villanies because their Religion consisted chiefly in robbing and spoiling the Protestants houses suffering many of them in the mean time beyond their cruell resolutions to escape safely away Nay whereas the furious people of Paris already inraged with a blinde zeale came to a certain white Thorne-tree that blossomed the day of the massacre in St. Innocents Churchyard in that city as if God by a miracle had approved their barbarous and sanguinary action the more judicious Papists conceived this to have happened by powring of hot water upon the root of that tree or by some other secret
practices although they exactly imitate their old master Pelagius in one particular which Vossius himselfe confesseth of him teaching many of their desperate doctrines as he did privately which yet they conceale and suppresse in their published Tractates which have given so many fatall wounds to the true Church of God in this and the last preceding age for the proofe whereof wee shall need to produce no other witnesses then those two sincere and impartiall Historians John Sleidane and the same Monsieur de Thou from whom wee may learne that after Melchior Hofman had broached his wicked Tenets in Germany about the yeere 1520. and with his disciples Thomas Muncer Bernard Rotman and John Leyden had assumed to themselves the name of Anabaptists and drawn many of the baser sort after them whom they perswaded not to suffer any of Noble blood to remain and that there could be no other lawfull Magistrate but one of their Sect they easily drew them to take armes and possessing themselves of the city of Munster in Westphalia had like to have proved the utter ruine of it had it not been delivered by the armes of some of the Germane Princes after which followed the execution of divers of those rebels After these men succeeded as chiefe propagators of their errours John Cerdo hanged at Brussels Michael Servetus the Spaniard burnt at Geneva and Cornelius Apelman executed at Vtrecht in the yeare 1570. all three of them though guiltie of divers grosse heresies yet were condemned and put to death for blasphemie and other notorious crimes John Williams their successor finding their treasonable and Anarchicall positions to afford them no safety in any well governed Monarchie or Republique got him to Ruremund in the Dutchie of Guelders and there having drawn to his partie some three hundred varlets and mean fellowes hee told them no goods could rightly appertain to any man but of their own Sect and therefore assured them whatsoever they could get by pillaging and robbery was a lawfull gain by which means many horrible and grievous thefts and spoiles were committed in Guelderland and in the Dutchie of Cleve adjoyning The said Williams also being taken was for his many abominable offences and villanies burnt at Buslaken in the Dutchie of Juliers yet died so courageously like Servetus his fellow Anabaptist as that their Sect was exceedingly confirmed and increased thereby so as had not their other portentous crimes justly necessitated their capitall punishment it had been much better for the true Church of God their lives had been spared For whereas before ignorant men had for the most part presidented their Church and kingdom for their chief Prophets commonly governed all the rest after their own wills these mens sufferings drew on as may be easily gathered Theodore Bibliander and Sebastian Castellio to give up their names to the maintenance of the same blasphemies who cunningly defended only in their publique writing those points which Pelagius had formerly broached whom Arminius Vorstius and the other Anabaptists of the nether Germany have since followed but for those dangerous and unsafe doctrines of condemning Magistracy extirpating Nobility and permitting robberies howsoever they may still in private teach and adhere to them and would perhaps if they could once make the stronger partie in any State soon enough practise them yet they have most politickly omitted not onely the maintenance but the very mention of them also in the said published Works and Tractates Thus also the Papists themselves upon occasion being pressed with any of their seditious tenets will deny them as Peter Cotton the Jesuite did their allowing of the murther of Kings after Henry the fourth of France was stabbed by that wicked Jesuited varlet Ravaillac and Henry Garnet at his execution protested that he ever abhorred the Gunpowder-plot The Pelagians in the time of the ancient Britaines were the undoubted instruments of the ruine of England then called Britaine of murthering Constantine the father and Constans the son both successive Kings there and of setting the Royall Crown upon the head of Vortigern Duke of Cornwall a Pelagianized traytor against his Soveraign who in lieu thereof to gratifie them soon filled up as may be probably collected the Bishops Seas to which neither Baronies nor Sericality were then nor for five hundred yeares after annexed with hereticall and lazie droanes who had well-neere ruined the true Church of God in those dayes All the world may know what warning King James of England that learned Prince gave to the united States of the Netherlands by his published Works upon the death of the Anabaptist Arminius and succession of that blasphemous Vorstius in his roome and chaire at Layden that if they did not in time look to the suppression of those blasphemous Heretiques they would in the end prove the ruine of their Church and State God of his infinit mercy grant that they may never be able to bring desolation or subversion to them nor to any other Church Kingdome or State of Christendome where the Gospel and the truth are established by the increasing of their numbers and powers to an excessive and formidable proportion SECT. XXIII WE have seen the greatest and uttermost punishment that the Primitive Church thought fit to be inflicted on the Heretiques of those times was exilement in which case they had alwayes a competent time allowed to provide conveniences before they receded safe conduct for their departure and a full power given them either to retain their praediall and fixed estates they left and to receive by their deputed agents the yeerly revenues of them or else sell them And if wee do seriously peruse the Histories of later times we shall finde the cruellest Tygres and most Wolvish Prelates that ever miscarried the affaires of any Kingdome or State since the yeare 1500. never to have grown to that senslesse and belluine height of malice against the godly as neither to suffer them to enjoy their liberty and quiet of their consciences at home nor yet peaceably and innocently to leave their deare and native countrey and to plant themselves in such parts of the world as they may enjoy their inward peace without offence or scandall to any Philip the second of Spain who was one of the most prodigious offenders against God in his time having vitiated women of the noblest rank violated contracts of the deepest nature murthered his eldest son and third wife unjustly detained the Kingdome of Navarre broken his oath with Arragon Naples and the Netherlands and the most resolved and premeditated persecutor of Christendome being wholly actuated precipitated to it by Nicholas Perenot Cardinall of Granvellan and the bloody Inquisitors yet in the yeer 1575. he set out a publick Declaration touching all the Inhabitants of the Netherlands that it should be lawfull for any that would not embrace the Rom m Religion to depart from thence whither soever they would and to sell their estates or else to retain them and to receive the