Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A38821
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The great pressures and grievances of the Protestants in France and their apology to the late ordinances made against them : both out of the Edict of Nantes, and several other fundamental laws of France : and that these new illegalities, and their miseries are contrived by the Pop. Bishops arbitrary power / gathered and digested by E. E. of Greys Inn ... ; humbly dedicated to His Majesty of Great Britain in Parliament.
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Everard, Edmund.; France. Sovereign (1643-1715 : Louis XIV); France. Edit de Nantes.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing E3529; ESTC R8721
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124,201
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87
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to them of the pretended Reformed Religion nothing more capable to trouble the publick Tranquility nor to cause so deadly consequences of all sorts For it is in Sickness and above all at the approach of Death that men have the greatest need of repose and that trouble is to them most insupportable for that being otherwise sufficiently toyled they cannot indure to be molested in that Estate nor to be hindred in the injoyment of the Peace and comfort of their souls the Salvation whereof is then their sole Interest The Clergy in their other Articles have striven to take from them of the P. R. R. the means to live in this they come to deprive them of the liberty of dying in the profession of their Faith against that so express settlement of the Edict of Nantes in the 14th Article of the Particulars They of the said Religion saith it shall not be obliged to receive exhortations when they are sick and nigh unto Death whether it be by Condemnation of Justice or otherwise of others than they of the same Religion and they may be visited and comforted by their Ministers without being molested And this point was judged to be of so great consequence that the King ratified it by his answer of 1636. Art 19. For his Majesty there Ordained that the fourth Article of the particulars of the Edict of Nantes should be entirely observed with injunction to his Officers to hold their hand therein on pain to answer it in their proper and private names Can there be any thing more opposite to the Declaration The Edict of Nantes wills that the sick of the P. R. R. shall not be obliged to receive Exhortations of others than those of their own Religion and the Declaration on the contrary wills that they be obliged to suffer the Parish Priests and Aldermen to enter into their houses without their consents and without being called How shall we agree these two settlements so contrary For to say that the Declaration only permits the Parish Priests to presents themselves to the sick to know their minds not to make any exhortations unto them this is in truth to say nothing at all For where is the Parish Priest that seeing himself Master of the Chamber of a sick person will not adventure to speak somewhat unto him for to gain him And if any attempt to hinder him what uproar and what Mischief shall not follow upon it They will cry Rebellion against those that assist the sick They will pretend that they offer violence to the Parish Priest who making himself to be heard through the Windows the neighbourhood and almost all the people will run thither in a tumult break open the doors throw themselves in a fury into the Chamber of the poor agonising person who shall at the same time see himself miserably molested all his Family terrified and discomforted at what time as he ought to be left in repose to bethink himself of his Salvation And how many other Mischiefs will this permission given to the Parish Priests draw after it For the least word that one can say to them to free ones self from their urgencies and importunities shall be taken for an attempt on his person their persons shall be seized who let fall any word wherewith they are not satisfied they will drag them to Prison they will in the conclusion condemn them to so great Fines and such rigorous reparations as are to be seen by divers examples in many places Humanity it self ought to oblige unto more compassion to Families who are in sorrow and not to establish means to give trouble over and above to a wife that hath more than enough by the sickness of her Husband or to a mother that is weeping over a Child ready to give up the Ghost or to Children that have their hearts wounded for the sad estate of their Father Furthermore if a man be in a Phrenzy by the heat of a violent Feaver and he in the distraction of his spirit let fall any word conrary to his intention before the Parish Priest they will quickly lay hold on it as a good and formal Conversion and thereupon they will drive out of his Chamber all those that attend him They will hale away the Wife from her Husband and the Husband from his Wife under pretext that the sick hath changed his Religion and ought to have the liberty of his Conscience And if any person dye in this Phrensie they will seize on his Body and interr him after the Ceremonies of the C. A. R. R. though he never had any thoughts on it Yea and force his Children to leave the Church wherein they were born and pass over to that in which they pretend their Father dyed by vertue of the 45th Article of this Declaration which imports That the Children of the Fathers who departed in the R. C. A. R. Should be brought up in the said Religion But if the sick man escape they will constrain him to go unto the Mass and hinder him from returning to the P. R. R. by vertue of the Declaration against the Relapsed though he never thought in the least to quit his belief and if he have said any thing it hath been the pure effect of his Feaver in a time when he knew not what he said and when he was not himself And above all this they will constrain his Children also to go unto the Mass in consequence of this Declaration which in the 45th Article Ordains That Infants whose Fathers have been Catholicks shall be brought up in the Catholick Church Is it possible to be any misery like to this There is also herein another inconvenience which must not here be forgotten which is that the Parish Priests when they present themselves to the sick put to them captious and artificial questions upon design to entangle and surprize them for example they will ask them whether they would not be of the true Faith whether they be not willing to believe the pure and sound Doctrine whether they would not live and dye in the true Church and other such like things To which if a man answer only one Yes Immediately they take this word for an abjuration and at the same time they put his friends from him because they pretend by this one Yes that the man is become a good Roman Catholick They must not pretend to put them of the P. R. R. into shelter against all these disorders by the presence of the Judge and the Magistrate whom the Declaration wills to accompany the Parish Priests For the Parish Priests will choose the Judges and Officers according to their liking and they will find many as ill-disposed as the Parish Priests themselves and who far from moderating them will push them on to undertake any thing So that their presence instead of helping many times will hurt because it giveth more authority to that which he doth and the sick and his friends are less able to cause a
in Estate to choose one And by the same reason the children of those who actually profess the P. R. R. ought not they be Baptized and trained up in the same Religion being the same with their Fathers and wherein they were born and being that whilst they are yet in their Infancy they are not capable to choose a different one This were to tear away from Fathers their Bowels thus to ravish from them their Infants and to cause them to be Baptized in a Church and instructed in a Religion which they have renounced And we must talk no more of Liberty of Conscience in a Realm where it is given and authorized solemnly by so many Edicts if this prohibition take place This is to chase out of France all those persons how many soever there be who have imbraced the pretended Reformed Religion within this eighty years For where is that Father that can resolve to see his Infants in whom he hopes to live after his Death lead whether he will or not into a Communion from whom he is retired as not finding there any repose for his Conscience where is there a father that can digest the mortal displeasure to see himself bereaved of the fruits of his Marriage and to be condemned afterwards to pay them a Pension as we have seen examples in divers places and particularly in Rouen in the person of one named Bindel Painter whose Children are brought up in this manner If then his Majesty be touched with any Compassion towards his poor and humble Subjects of the P. R. R. he is besought herein to lend an ear unto their grief and cause these terms to be put out of this present Article which seem to have been slipped into it and added thereto by surprize against the intention of so wise a Soveraign For the other part of this Article which imports that the Infants whose Fathers are departed in the Catholick Religion shall be brought up in the same Religion they intend not at all against it provided it be intended of Infants that are under twelve years for Fe-males and fourteen years Males according to the Decrees of the Council regulating the age from which Infants may change their Religion But here is cause to complain of two things in this matter The one that notwithstanding by the Edict of Nantes and by two Decrees made in Council of the twenty eighth of September 1663 and of the twenty fourth of April 1665. the same thing hath been Decreed for the Infants whose Fathers have dyed in the P. R. R i. e. that their Infants should be brought up in the same Religion and for this purpose should be committed into the hands of their Mothers Tutors or other kindred of the pretended Reformed Religion Yet notwithstanding they have nor here made this Article reciprocal From whence they may in time infer that in this they have derogated from the Edict and Decrees of the Council which were before For this cause the King rejecting these words which have been will be pleased to render this Article reciprocal for them of the P. R. R. as well as for them of the C. A. R. The other cause of complaint is that even since the two Decrees came to be published they have not ceased to hale away also by force from the Kindred of the P. R. R. Infants whose Fathers and Mothers have alwayes been of this Religion and dyed therein Moreover now very lately the Parliament of Rouen by an Arrest of the first of February 1668. have decreed that a little Maid whose Father and Mother were departed in the P. R. R. should be taken out of the hands of her Kindred of that Religion notwithstanding they offered to bring her up for nothing that she might be put into the hands of her Tutor who is of the C. A. R. The reason which serves them to authorize such violences to the prejudice of the preceding Decrees is say they because these Decrees of the Council are not Registred and by consequence oblige not albeit that the last of the fourteenth of April 1665. enjoynes all Officers to be conformable thereunto and to cause it to be executed under pain of Rebellion The King therefore to give some means unto his Subjects of the P. R. R. whereby his orders may take effect in this important matter is besought to make thereof an Authentick Declaration which may be Registred in the Parliaments ARTICLE XLVI Schools That they of the said P. R. R. may not keep any Schools for the instruction of their own Children or others but in places where they have right to the publick exercise of their Religion according to the 13th Article of the particulars of the Edict of Nantes in which Schools whether they be in the Towns or in the Suburbs they may not teach save only to Read Write and Arithmetick TO understand well what the Schools of those of the P. R. R. are it is necessary to observe that they are of three sorts The first are their Academies and Colledges where they teach their Divinity The second are publick Schools where they may teach Grammar and Humane Learning with open doors The third sort are particular petty Schools which they keep with their doors shut where the Infants of the said Religion learn to Read Write and Arithmetick only For their Academies and Colledges they are fixed to certain places and they shall not be insisted on here because this Article deals not with their concerns For the publick Schools the Edict permits them in all Towns and in all places where the exercise is publick as the 37th Article of the Particulars doth prove They of the said Religion saith it may not keep publick Schools save only in the Towns and places where the publick Exercise thereof is permitted But as for petty Schools the Edict supposeth them as permitted in all places indifferently by natural reason and equity which authorises Fathers no less to give instruction than bread unto their Children and as well to nourish their Spirits by a familiar Instruction as to sustain their Bodies by an ordinary nourishment So that it cannot be doubted that this is the intent of the Edict for that when it forbids to have Schools elsewhere than in places where the Exercise is permitted it speaks expresly of publick Schools whence it results that it leaves a liberty for particular Schools in other places where the publick Exercise is not had In effect this practice hath alwayes been followed since the Edict and Parliaments have formally authorized this usage by their Decrees The Parliament of Rouen have granted many on this occasion and two remarkable ones amongst others The one in the Month of May 1605. By which notwithstanding the opposition of the Abbess of Montivilliers one named Haise was permitted to teach to Write and Read in that Town of Montivilliers notwithstanding that there was no exercise of the P. R. R. neither in the Town nor in the Suburbs nor within more than