Great and Lewes the Good in France ordaine for such as were counted Sectaries in their times Neither did those three hundred and eighteen Fathers in the first Nicene Councell those six hundred and thirty in that of Chalcedon or those hundred and fifty in that of Constantinople use any other weapons against the same Arrians Nestorians and Macedonians then the Word of God nor stirred they up or permitted the Christian Magistrate in their dayes to punish them by death Paulus Aquiliensis and Cedrenus doe also both of them report that when the Emperour Justinus used clemency towards the very Arrian Heretiques Theodoricus the King of Italy being infected with the same poyson did notwithstanding led by that example suffer the Orthodox Christians to have the free exercise of their Religion in all his Dominions Wee shall need no further examples to prove this truth when it is confessed by one of the most learned and best Romanists of our age that there is no approved example in all the Monuments of Antiquity of any execution done upon the Sectaries of those times but that the Church of God did alwayes abhorre the shedding of bloud in matters that meerly concern Religion Jac. Aug. Thuanus Prooem. in Histor. p. 5. SECT. VI IT is likewise contrary to the practice of the best Princes and the wisest States of this latter age of the world to make matter of heresie it selfe a capitall crime Francis the first of that name King of France having decreed a persecution against the poore Protestants of Merindoll and Cabrieres and being informed by William Bellay Lord Langay Governour of the Province that they were harmless men very laborious in their callings just in their dealings loyall to their Prince charitable to the poore and very frequent in their prayers to God their innocency being likewise cleared in a great measure by Cardinall Sadolet himselfe he caused them to be freed from further persecution till being falsly informed by one Minerius a turbulent fellow that there were fifteen thousand of them up in armes in rebellion he rashly gave them over to the fury of their enemies yet not as Heŕetiques which he alwayes accounted them but as Traytors as he was then mis-informed of them In Germany Ferdinand the first taught by the error of Charles the fifth his elder Brother found no such meanes to make his Government happy and his Empire flourishing as to decree the liberty of Religion Which course the good Emperour Maximilian his Sonne following dyed as happy as he lived victorious The Venetian State indure no Inquisitors in matters of Religion nor if any of their Subjects be accused of Heresie doe they suffer it to be questioned before any of the Clergy alone who are thirsty after bloud but before them joyntly together with their Civill Judges The first Monarch in England that made matter of Religion a capitall crime by a publick Act or Statute was the usurper Henry the fourth who having by the perswasion and assistance of Thomas Arundell that traytor Archbishop of Canterbury and his fellow-Prelates deposed and murdered his lawfull Soveraigne Richard the second to curry favour with those bloudy Canniballs was forced to yeeld to the murdering of Gods Saints since whose time the bloud of the Martyrs in England have proved the seed of the Church although by the short raigne of that Kingdomes unfortunate Mary their number comes far short of those in France and the seventeene Provinces in which two Dominions within the space of little more then five yeares the curious searcher may finde by diligent inquisition that Gods truth was sealed under Charles the ninth of France and Philip the second of Spaine with the bloud of near upon two hundred thousand Martyrs amongst whom were slaughtered divers great and eminent personages of both sexes a cruelty that very Mahumetans doe abhorre as it appeared by that which the Ambassadours sent from Abas-Meriza the Persian Sultan to the Emperour Rodolph in the yeare 1604. did alledge to justifie the mercifull Government of that Empire to wit that all Christians had free liberty of Conscience in all their Soveraignes Dominions and therefore they exhorted his Imperiall Majesty to joyn in a firme league with him against their common enemy the Turke SECT. VII AS it is against the practice of the Primitive Church the course held by the Christian Emperours and the observation of the wisest Princes and States of the latter age though otherwise Pontifician to make matter of heresie a capitall crime to inforce the Conscience and to put to death for the cause of Religion meerly so it is against the Rules of charitie and reason First It is against the Rules of charity if we had no other light to guide us but the most wise answer of Englands last matchlesse Edward being then but a childe when he was pressed to yeeld his assent to the burning of an Heretique What said he shall I send him to hell By which he truly intimated that whereas in all other offences the Malefactors are punished with death because it may be hoped they have repented the sinne but to destroy an Heretick before conviction is to be the Devils Catour and to send him in provision even to Hell it selfe For the very pertinacious holding of an Heresie is agreed on by all sides to be a damnable sinne and then the cutting them off in that sinne is to be the immediate Instrument of their perdition This doth that virulent Romanist or monster of men Nicholas Harpsfeild in his Wiclevian History openly boast of Cap. 16. p. 717. That those blessed Champions of Christ whom he calls Heretiques did in the fires that consumed their bodies taste the first-fruits of the eternall fire they endured afterwards On the other side if they suffer not but for feare of death hope of preferment or other base ends turne from one Religion to another especially from the truth to errour and Idolatry without instruction or reasonable conviction they onely dissemble outwardly as the Moores of Gran ido did under that bloudy Philip the second of Spaine who being enforced to be present at the Masse in the morning practised their own Mahumetanisme in the evening or els their conscience being shipwracked by their Apostasie before conviction with Francis Spira they are swallowed up of despaire or with Peter Espinae Archbishop of Lions of the Henetick faction in Henry the fourths time of France with lust and Epicurisme who practised that emasculating sinne with his own sister The Jews in England from Willian the firsts time till the eighteenth yeare of Edward the first were the onely Usurers of the Realme and brought in large contributions and tallages to the Kings under whom they lived and enjoyed here the freedome of their consciences At their deaths their whole Estates escheated to the King which their next heires commonly redeem'd for one full third part of three But to incourage them to turne Christians it was appointed in the Assize by which they were
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
imposture or if it were a true miracle then the Protestants alledged that it might much more justly be interpreted to the advantage of the Protestant Church then of their own That first the place where the tree grew being dedicated to the memory of Innocents argued the innocency of those who were martyred and that as the same tree at that season of the yeere being in August though it shewed life yet could not have blossomed without a miracle So the Protestant Church and Religion in France which seemed by this blow to be utterly extinct and ruined should again revive blossome forth and flourish by the miracalous power of God in as great splendor and beauty as over it had done formerly which the event and issue notwithstanding all the great Processions and high Masses of Pope Gregory the thirteenth and his Conclave at Rome did accordingly verifie SECT. XX HOw shall these sober minded and moderate Papists rise up in judgement at the last day against all loose ignorant and prophane Protestants of both orders who for the smallest offences and for the very tendernesse of conscience it self vex molest cite sue imprison fine suspend deprive and utterly undo their innocent godly and peaceable fellow Christians For if it be neither warranted by the practice of the Primitive Church nor consonant to reason policie or the property of the true Church to kill an Heretique by a long and noysome imprisonment or to adjudge and put him to a violent death If persecution for conscience sake be accounted and that justyl a brand of the Antichristian Church and that Luther and his followers had even necessary cause in the yeer 1517. in that respect only to depart out of the Romish Babylon as from a Malignant Synagogue how is it possible that Protestant Prelates should persecute any at all with imprisonment and despoiling them of their goods though convicted of Schisme it self but much more such sober and innocent Christians who by their own confession hold nothing in matter of doctrine contrary to the truth live inoffensively and vertuously in respect of their conversation and are ready in all humility to submit to any particulars in matters supposed to be indifferent which they shall be convinced out of Gods Word to be so It is confessed on all hands that it is a most dangerous sin to do any thing yea a lawfull act against the dictate and perswasion of Conscience and shall pious Christians in all other respects for this alone be persecuted and followed with greater violence then Adulterers Swearers or Fornicators themselves The authority and glory of a Prince had been as fully extended in removing those particulars which made the breach as in retaining them it being acknowledged on all hands that the removall of them is and was alwayes as lawfull as the retention of them but if the wisdome of any Church conceive it self upon great and sound motives rather obliged to retain them and to adde new burthens rather then to abolish or change the old yet doubtlesse withall some course may be considered of how those who in all main and fundamentall truths are the true servants of God the humble and obedient children of the Church and of innocent and vertuous lives might in the mean time enjoy the Ordinances of God in peace and quiet For doubtlesse if one Protestant may lawfully vex cite fine suspend deprive excommunicate and imprison another which in some cases necessitates a lingring death for things accounted by themselves no way essentiall to Gods worship normans salvation then is all we have said against the Romists Synagogue of no validity at all nay there being no Magis and Minus in persecution it will follow necessarily that for the same causes one Protestant may as well put to death another as imprison him and so Samaria shall of necessity justifie her sister Sodome That the supreme Magistrate in things lawfull ought to be obeyed for Conscience sake is a certain truth But yet it is too apparent that such as are more violent for these lesser matters so to ravage and trample on the weaker and more humble Christians by pressing obedience to the Magistrate are commonly themselves the most outrageously disobedient for though they seeme most eager to obey him in these formall and outward commands yet where the commands of God himself and the Magistrates meet together forbidding Adultery Fornication swearing blaspheming unlawfull gaming starving of souls maintaining erroneous doctrines and divers other horrible and Atheisticall offences here neither God nor Prince Law nor Gospel heaven nor hell can restrain their lustful practices or scandalous lives Did Cardinall Sadolet himself intercede with Francis the first the Grandfather and the Arcbishop of Vienne and Bishop of Valence with Francis the second the Grandchilde two of the French Kings for the Protestants of their times whom yet they accounted Heretiques and is it possible any Protestant Prelate or Divine should stir up any Protestant Prince or State to ruine their Protestant-fellow-Ministers and other Christians because they cannot submit to such particulars as in themselves can no way hinder or impeach the unity of faith nor could breake if Gods glory were only aimed at the bond of love The Apostle Paul having left the true Church that incomparable Catholike Rule That the stronger Christians should beare with the weaker and that the weaker Christians should not condemn the stronger SECT. XXI THere were in all ages even in the first and purest times Confessions set out by the Primitive Christians to be a Guide and a Rule for all Conditions to walk by and when the Nicene Creed was penned by the learned Fathers of that Councell it was all that was required of any to be publikly confessed that had been either accused or suspected of Heresie The Protestants in all ages when they were questioned and especially since the yeere 1500. that the differences about Religion have even filled Europe with the sharp disputes of the sword and pen have not only offered to do whatsoever the ancient Fathers required as an act sufficient to cleare and acquit such as were in their times suspected of heresie but further to put their cause to the triall of the Scriptures the best and surest Rule nay to admit the Decrees of the first Generall Councels and the united Tenets of the Orthodox Fathers for the first five hundred yeers But the Romish Synogogue degenerating first in manners and then in doctrine first introducing innumerable Trinkets and Ceremonies to pester Gods publique worship and afterwards severall Idolatries absolutely to kill and poison it could not satisfie themselves with pressing upon the Protestants the confession of those Truths they yet maintain'd an I held but that not a grain of corn might remain in their great heap of chaffe nor one true Professor be hidden amongst the multitude they invented four manner of unchristian and tyrannicall courses whereby to insnare and illaqueate not only the most innocent but even the most prudent and
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
HAving with as much delight as diligence read over this excellent Discourse entituled The Primitive practise for preserving Truth and finding it richly furnished with variety of learned and select Story eminently usefull for common information against persecution meerly for Conscience sake I conceive it very worthy of the Presse John Bachiler THE PRIMITIVE PRACTISE FOR PRESERVING TRUTH OR AN HISTORICALL NARRATION Shewing what course the PRIMITIVE Church anciently and the best Reformed Churches since have taken to suppresse Heresie and Schisme AND Occasionally also by way of Opposition discovering the Papall and Prelaticall courses to destroy and roote out the same truth and the judgements of GOD which have ensued upon persecuting Princes and Prelates By Sir Simonds D' Ewes The second Impression more exact then the former LONDON Printed by M. S. for Henry Overton and are to be sold at his Shop in Popes-head Alley TO THE READER JUDICIOUS READER THIS ensuing Discourse being penned by mee about eight yeeres since not only for recreation amidst my severer studies but as a Preparative also by which I desired to fit my self either for a voluntary exitement or a necessary suffering I intended it only for a private use For I then residing in the County of Suffolke which had newly groaned under the Prelaticall tyranny of Bishop Wren as did all other parts of his Diocesse did know that the Presse was then onely open to matters of a contrary subject But now upon the perusall thereof conceiving that it might be of some use in respect of the many distractions amongst us at this present when a blessed Reformation is so neere the birth and yet the Church seems to want strength to bring it forth I was content to yeeld to the publishing thereof I did at first purposely omit the citations of those many and select Authorities out of which this ensuing Discourse was drawn lest the margin thereby should have swoln to a greater proportion then the Discourse it self some whole Sections or Paragraphs being almost entirely extracted out of the Records of this Kingdome And I have through the whole Tractat chiefly laid down the matter of fact out of Story not only extant in print but yet remaining also in M. S. and have lest the debate of the dogmaticall part of it to those whose calling and leisure is more proper for it My many present imployments both publike and private did scarce permit mee to supervise it and to amend it in some few places which puts mee almost out of all hope ever to transmit to posterity any one of those severall great and more necessary Works I had in part collected and prepared for the good and benefit of this Church and Kingdome in the time of my leisure and freedome S. D. THE PRIMITIVE PRACTISE For preserving TRUTH SECTION I. IT is the undoubted Mark or Brand of the Church Antichristian and Malignant to persecute of the Church Christian Orthodox and truly Catholike to be persecuted For the Truth if it have but equall countenance and safety will not only prosper and flourish amongst the professors thereof but will also in due time sometimes by a sudden power profligate and trample upon Heresie as it did upon Pelagianisme among the ancient Protestant Britains in Wales about the yeer of our Lord 466. and sometimes by insensible degrees waste and wear out falshood as it did the contagion of the Arrians amongst the Eastern Christians but Falshood Heresie mens Inventions burthensome Superstitions intermixed with Gods Worship and Idolatry or any divine Creature-adoration consisting in mens bowing to or towards Images Crosses Altars Communion-tables Reliques or the like can never be generally and publikely established without sharp and cruell persecution be exercised and practised upon the goods estates liberties and lives of the godly The Pope and the Turk have both upheld and propagated their abominations by the sword although no indifferent and impartiall judgement can deny but that the Romish Antichrist in this one particular exceeds the Ottomanish Muphti in that he makes it a part of the Tridentine Faith and so a Tenet of his Religion to persecute destroy and root out all the Euangelicall party under the false and personated names of Heretiques Whereas the Turk acknowledgeth this Truth that the Conscience neither can nor ought to be compelled and therefore they permit the free exercise not only of the Protestant Religion in all their dominions but of the Popish also in many places of the same whom yet they justly abhor as the Jewes do also led by the morality of the second Commandement for setting up Images in the places of their publike Assemblies and committing Idolatry by adoring them SECT. II. A Protestant Church if it desire to intermix any superstitious Ceremonies or Idolatrous actions with the power and purity of the Gospel must likewise be enforced to borrow some part of the other Characters also from the Church Malignant by enforcing the observation of such additions with the persecution of Gods children in their estates goods and liberties equalling in many respects the shedding of their bloods and reckoned up together by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrewes for so many kindes or species of martyrdome There are in all parts of the world amongst the very Christians themselves the greater number ignorant prophane and vicious who neither regard to know the truth nor desire to suffer for it but will alwayes run with the multitude and be carried with the stream They will of Protestants become Papists to morrow rather then lose either goods life or liberty of Papists the next day Anabaptists with Sebastian Castellio and James Arminius of Anabaptists the third day if by that means they may escape danger and rise to preserment become Turks or Abisens For doubtlesse in running from truth to falshood as in turning from the medium to an extreme there is no essentiall but only a graduall difference As Constantine filled the Empire with Christians so Julian with Atheists and Persecutors The greater number with holy King Edward in England even Harding and Boner among others for company embraced the Protestant truth and as soone as hee died all again generally licked up the old vomit under Queen Mary whose bloody fires were scarce quenched by her death and the royall Scepter throughly grasped by her blessed sister but all again for the most part as if Religion had been but a fashion which commonly deriveth its frenzie into the countrey by the Court changed with the new Prince and especially the Church-men among whom through the whole Realm not twenty in a thousand did stick to their infallible Head the Romish Antichrist SECT. III. WHen learned and pious Luther lay on his death-bed he * acknowledged his errors which coming but newly out of darknesse had been embraced by him amongst his many truths and obtruded from him upon the Church of God especially those two monsters of Consubstantiation and Ubiquity yet taking counsell rather of men then of
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
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
Episcoporum potestati carnificinae permisit who yet overlived that excarnificating Arch-Prelate two yeares at the least For the Archbishop having murthered divers godly martyrs in H. 4. time and been a great stickler in State-affaires when long before he procured himself to be made Lord Chancellor of England and lastly in a Synod held by himself at Rochester having forbad the reading of the Scriptures in English and limited Preachers under a heavie censure what they should treat upon in the Pulpit was soon cut short himself by the immediate hand of God after he had condemned that warlike Gentleman Sir John de Old Castle Lord Cobham before he could see him executed his tongue being so benummed and swoln that he could neither swallow nor speak as Thomas Gascon relates in his Theologicall Dictionary for a few dayes before his death it being faith another the just judgement of God upon him and may be a faire warning to all other wicked Popish Prelates that as he had muzled up the mouths of Preachers and kept the Scriptures from the knowledge of the people being their spirituall food so he should neither be able to speak nor to swallow from that very minute this judgement fell first upon him but died within a few dayes after in great torment and extremity by a languishing silence and famishment The last example is of later dayes and concernes the admirable punishment of David Beton Archbishop of St. Andrews in Scotland being also a member of the purpurated Conclave at Rome he had continued divers yeares an inveterate enemy of the Gospel in that Kingdome under James the fifth and after his death taking advantage of the infancy and pupillary age of the Princesse Mary the hereditary Queen of that Realme he thought it a work worthy of himself to double-die his Cardinall robes in the bloud of the Saints and therefore to make a sull and cleare way for that his sanguinary project he forged a Will of the deceased King establishing himself chief Regent there during the young Ladies incapability to govern from which upon the discovery of his false play he being removed and a while committed to safe custody he was no sooner delivered but he presently enterprised to raise a new and fatall war between England and Scotland and to root out the professors of the truth by a violent and bloudy persecution Amongst others cited and imprisoned or exiled in the yeare 1545. he seized on George Wischart a very eloquent and learned Preacher who by the Latine Writers of that age is surnamed Sophocardius and contrary to their own Popish Canons adjudged him to present death himself which is never done except in the merciless Inquisition of Spain by those bloudy Wolves themselves but by delivering the martyrs into the power of the lay-Magistrate and in the Court before his Castle of St. Andrews caused the same to be executed the said George being first strangled and his body afterwards burnt to ashes the Cardinall in the mean time had a chamber prepared for him with Carpets and Cushions on the windows out of which to be a triumphant spectator of this godly mans murther from which he departed not more delighted then as he himself thought secured beginning to fortifie his said Castle against all assaults But Gods judgement from eternity awarded against him for this latter as well as his former cruelties exercised upon his faithfull servants slept not for within a few weeks after the Cardinall having falsified his promise to the Lord Norman Lesle son of the Earle of Rothsey a devout Romanist he upon the thirteenth day of May the same yeare with some fourteen resolute Gentlemen in his company entred the same Castle of St. Andrewes where the Cardinall lay and having first assured himself of the command within and the gates without he executed that bloudy Prelate in his bed without law or justice who had but a little before most unjustly condemned and murthered the aforesaid George Wischart and willing to expose the dead carcasse of that purpurated persecutor as it were all weltered and besmeared with bloud to the view of the people who abhorred his cruelties and rejoyced at his fall they casually and contingently laid it along to be seen of all men upon that very window out of which a little before leaning at his ease upon rich Cushions he had proudly beheld the butchering of that godly martyr The Cardinals end 't is likely had neither been so sudden nor so shamefull had he followed the wholsome counsell and seasonable advice of John Viniram a learned Priest and moderate Papist who by his command preaching before him and divers others of the Romish Clergie then assembled together for the condemnation of that godly martyr George Wischart told them plainly That nothing did more encrease the number of Heretiques then their own stupid ignorance and wicked lives and that there was no other sword to be used for their extirpation then that of Gods Word by which they were to be tryed and convinced because every error which might properly and truly be called an Heresie was directly and flatly against the same written Word SECT. XVI IT may somewhat amaze the reason and judgement of any moderate man though an Atheist why the Pope himself or his Prelates and Clergie should so extreamely hate and violently persecute even more cruelly then they doe Jewes or Turks the Evangelicall partie and especially those of the French Scottish and Helvetick confession who doe commonly joyn eminency of piety and godlinesse with a most sound and absolute body of doctrine agreeable with that of the Primitive Church But if wee consider that the Pope himselfe all Popish or popishly affected Prelates and all the Romish rabble like the Scribes and Priests in our Saviours dayes ayme nothing at all at Gods glory or the salvation of mens soules but onely at the maintenance of their wealth pride and tyranny not intending to yeeld an inch or haires breadth to any the least reformation wee cannot but see that their self-love and wallowing in all sensualitie is the cause of the hatred of the godly who both by their lives and writings condemne and oppose their wickednesse and errors For as the persecutions of the Arrians against the Orthodox Fathers exceeded the cruelty of the Heathen Emperours so hath that of the Romish Babylon far surpassed and out-stript them both being joyned together they feare not the diminution of their Votaries by the perswasion of Jewes or Turks but onely by the sound reasonings of the Protestants whose Religion hath already gained from them not onely Cities Republickes and Provinces but whole Kingdomes also and therefore seeing the truth it selfe is against them they count it high time to fall from reasoning to policy and from institution to cruell persecution as a ready meanes to carry through their bad cause Incomparable Monsieur de Thou who is a glory to the Romish Synagogue it selfe and whose History the most exact and excellent that ever