was written by a humane pen ought alwayes to be deare to the Christian world discovers plainly to us this truth in setting downe the bloudy Legacy Pope Paul the third left to his Conclave when he died in the yeare 1359. For having called divers of the Cardinalls into his bed-chamber he exhorted them by all meanes to maintaine and continue the office of the Inquisition as the onely meanes left upon earth to establish and support the Romish Religion then which Confession there can none be more cleare of the falshood of their pretended Catholick Church for if no other way remaine but bloud and butcheries for them to establish and repaire the lofty and proud Towers of their Babylon then have they doubtlesse no part left in the Church founded by our Saviour and his Apostles for that was at first reared up and finished by the preaching of the Gospel and may certainly be continued and supported to the worlds end by the same meanes It is not for Christians but for Pagans and Infidells who know not the way of instruction to propagate their Gentilisme and Idolatry by fire and sword Besides that epidemicall sinne of lust both naturall and against nature being peculiar to the Popish Prelates and the rest of their Clergie is a maine ground of their stupefied Consciences and so prepares and fits them for the shedding of innocent bloud or any other sinne whatsoever Peter Espinaâ— Archbishop of Lyons in France was a great persecutor and a prodigious incestuator with his own sister John Archbishop of St. Andrewes in Scotland spent the greater part of the revenues of his Sea and the seizure of the Protestants estates whose mortall enemy he was upon his harlots and revellings the Cardinall of Granvellans veneries were so manifest and numerous as when in the yeare 1574. the Kingdome of Tunis and the Fort called the Gulet before accounted impregnable were wonne by the Turke the Spaniards made a jest of it and said openly that the Cardinalls breeches had occasioned that losse meaning thereby that Philip the second relying chiefly upon his advice in that and most of the rest of his important affaires his lust so tooke him up as he had not time to give seasonable counsell The reckoning up of all these lustfull Priests and Prelates who have been persecuters of the truth since the last Reformation begun by learned Luther would defile all modest eares to heare or any Christian tongue to relate It may justly be said of them all what one delivered of the before-mentioned Cardinall Beton That he wallowed at home in pollution with his harlots and raged abroad with the bloud and slaughter of the innocent Ockam himselfe in the first part of his Dialogues lib. 5. cap. 16. confesseth that a wicked and an Atheisticall life blinds the understanding and prepares a way for the entertainment of the vilest heresies How true is this of the Romish Prelates who could not possibly swallow down those prodigious errours and severall kinds or species of Idolatry abhorred of the very Moores and Turks That taking from the Commandements one that adding to the Articles of the Creed twelve that robbing the people of the Cup that depriving God of his honour by praying to men and women departed that trampling of Christs infinite merits under their prophane feet by their own merits and a number of other falshoods were not their judgements poysoned by their horrible lusts and other crying sins The Turks themselves boast at this day that they first learn'd their Sodomie from the Italians and that disorderly brood in Italy may as truly vaunt that they first learn'd that abomination from those amongst them in orders Was there ever or shall there ever be not onely amongst the Papists but amongst the Lutherans and Pseudo-Lutherans any Prelate or other Ecclesiasticall person that did or shall violently cite accuse suspend fine imprison deprive or murther any godly Minister or other pious Christian who was not or will not be amongst other vices guilty of that brutish sin of lust And 't is possible though the back-door be kept never so secret yet God shall at last in his judgement reveale it to the world as he doth often punish them with that loathsom and infamous disease commensurate to that sin with which that notable persecutor Doctor Weston in Queen Maries dayes in England was so unconcealably smitten as he was ordinarily branded by a beastly nickname not beffiting modesty to expresse SECT. XVII THe fruitfull seed-time of severall vices and of lust especially in the Popish Prelacie and Clergie brings in a large encrease in the Laity also to fill up the reaping time or harvest and not onely their lust and Epicurisme but their malice against the truth and thirsting after the bloud of the professors thereof like a contagious gangrene hath likewise infected especially since the yeare 1500. the vicious and prophane lay-Papists themselves What was Escovedo the great Instrument of the King of Spains cruelties against the Evangelicall party in the lower Germany but a lump of lust which in the end proved fatall to him But as the horrible massacre committed in France in severall places in the yeare 1572. is not to be paralleld in respect of the treachery and inhumanity of it in any Story of the most barbarous Nations of the world so it will not be amisse seeing the examples of this kinde would else prove endlesse to confine our selves with taking a summary view of the chief undertakers in that master-piece of hell which was never in any possibilitie to be equalled since but with the Romish Powder-plot in England had it succeeded To begin with Paris it selfe the murtherers there were for the most part brutish and lustfull souldiers or prophane varlets of the scumme of the Citie their leaders were indeed more noble but lesse vertuous The Dukes of Guise and Aumale Albert Gondy Earle of Rets Tavanne and others of them having been bred up in lusts revellings and other Aulicall deviations The place that came neerest to Paris in the cruelties of their murthers was the Citie of Lyons where the numbers of the slaine and massacred were so great as their bodies being cast into the river Rosne corrupted and stained the streame the violence whereof carrying them downe upon heaps to Tornou and the inhabitants not knowing what they were but fearing an invasion by enemies or robbers assembled themselves in armes together for their mutuall defence The chief abetters and ring-leaders of which butchery Monsieur de Thou himselfe confesseth to have been Boidon Mornieu and Clou three of the most wicked and vilest varlets that a Kingdome could harbour which Boidon was after executed at Clermont in Auvergne and if Merniue escaped a shamefull end yet doubtlesse he deserved it as well as his fellow-persecutor having before as witnesseth Serranus procured the murther of his own father At Tholouse also a few dayes after there was a great slaughter of the godly committed but by whom not by the better
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
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
and three of them by violent deaths and in his posterity ended the Valesian line the Crown devolving thereupon to the royall branch of Clermont commonly called Bourbon whom his sons had most bitterly hated and persecuted Of all his five daughters three died issuless and the eldest that had issue was cut off by poyson Nay his very Bastard son Henry of Engolisme a great actor amongst others in the massacre of Paris perished also by the stab of Philip Altovit a Florentine his old enemy in the yeer 1586. during the raign of Henry the third his brother SECT. XII FOr Charles the ninth third son of Henry the second aforesaid that succeeded Francis the second his brother in the Kingdome of France in the yeer 1560. had he continued his raign with as much mercy and wisdome as he began it or followed the grave and seasonable advice of Michael Hospitalius his Chancellor in his latter yeers as well as he did in his former he had in all likelihood lived as vertuously as hee died miserably Hee had scarce raigned two yeers in peace and plenty when Katherine de Medices his mother desiring to vest and settle the Regencie in her self by raising combustions in the Realm began to perswade her son to revive and renew those persecutions against the Protestants which his father had begun shee reconciled her self to Francis Lorainer Duke of Guise whom but a little before she had justly feared and hated being a secret enemy to Lewes de Clermont Prince of Conde He and the Marshall of St Andrew having gained Annas de Memorancy Constable of France to their party conspired all together for the utter ruine of the truth The Protestants in the mean seeing the King in his Infancy to be held captive as it were by this Triumvirate take up Arms by the Queen-mothers own instigation to maintain the Kings Edict of Pacification published in the yeer 1561. and commonly called The Edict of January The yeer following by the instigation of the same Triumvirate not only the Queen-mother but Anthony de Clermont usually sirnamed Bourbon King of Navar also who yet died a Protestant was drawn on to assail the said Protestants by open force they in the mean time filling the Queen-mothers ears with these vain flatteries that she should soon see the utter ruine of all the Heretikes in France from which time that goodly kingdome so rich peaceable and flourishing for neer upon forty yeers together some short times of truce and peace being interposed was filled with cruelties ravages ravishments blood-shedding battels sires slaughters and all other calamitous desolations that accompany intestine and civill broiles in the issue of all which the Protestants being increased in their strength and numbers obtained a more firm and advantageous peace then ever they had before enjoyed whereas those three Incendiaries of all these miseries perished within a few yeers after by the just judgement of God in the very act of their hostile pursuements of his children The Marshall of Saint Andrew was slain at the battell of Dreux Annas de Memorancie under the very walls of Paris and Francis Lorainer Duke of Guise was pistolled by John Poltrot at the siege of Orleance King Charles seeing that open force could not destroy the truth nor root out the Professors thereof about two yeers before the hellish massacre began at Paris and continued to the perpetuall infamy of France in divers other Cities in that Realm held a secret Councell in the Castle of Blois with Katherine de Medices his mother Alexander and Hercules called also Henry and Francis his two brothers and Henry Lorainer son and heir of the before pistolled Duke Francis Duke of Guise by what means they might best draw the Protestants into their toile to destroy and murther them The same Councell was held again by King Charles in the house of Hieronimo de Gondy at St. Clou and the time and order of the bloody marriage banquet to be served in at the nuptials of the King of Navar with the Lady Margaret his sister was there agreed upon and resolved of almost in the same manner as it was afterwards put in execution upon the 24. day of August being St Bartholomews day in the yeer 1572. in which were most inhumanely slaughtered within the space of few dayes of men women and children many of them also being great and honourable personages of either sex about thirty thousand And while the Duke of Guise was busie in prosecuting that mercilesse and inhumane execution it was seriously advised upon and disputed of in the Queen-mothers Cabinet-councell whether it were not necessary that hee himself and the rest of his family then there should also be dispatched at the same time in that tumult King Charles himself never saw good day after that bloody massacre although his Court sycophants had promised him it should prove the first happy day of his absolute Monarchie for though hee had been long drenched in lust a sin seldome separated from a Persecutor by his ordinary advowtrie with a mean wench of Orleance on whom hee begot Charles of Engolisme after Earle of Auvergne and though he had been trained up by his mother to see the flaughter of beasts and ever in the chases loved to both his hands in the bloud of the fallen game all which might have served to have stupefied his conscience as they did enflame his fierce and cruell nature yet so stinging a remorse in his inward man did ever pursue and haunt him after that mercilesse slaughter accomplished chiefly by his often swearing and forswearing himself by which the Queen of Navar and the Admirall Chasrilion were deceived as that his eyes rolled often uncertainly in the day with feare and suspicion and his sleep was usually interrupted in the night with dismall dreams apparitions like R. 3. of England after the murther of his two Nephews in the Tower of London nay though he survived not this inhumane slaughter sull two yeares yet had he plotted and decreed the death of the said Henry Duke of Guise and the removall of his Queen-mother her instruments from the helm of State But some of his agents that were to have acted these last feats playing false with him as he had some few dayes before the said massacre poysoned that incomparable Princesse for learning and piety Joan D'Albret Queen of Navar Grandmother to Lewes the thirteenth now King of France so did his mother or the Duke of Guise by way of prevention or anticipation minister to him his fatall physick of which after many sharp and grievous torments he deceased upon Whitsunday having not then attained to the five and twentieth yeare of his age in the yeare 1574. the violence of the venome leaving in his intrailes as appeared upon his distection many blew spots and swellings SECT. XIII WE have seen the gain and advantage that King Charles the ninth of France made by his barbarous persecutions 't is likely that those very flatterers
at Rome That if hee did not speedily withdraw that citation hee would no longer acknowledge him for Pope At which bold Declaration the Pope and his Conclave being affrighted the prosecution of that businesse ceased by the very withdrawing of the Citation it self and by the Popes future silence All which open affronts the Popes in this fifteenth age after our bleffed Saviours incarnation endured from these Kings not because they were more deare to their Subjects then their Predecessors or the Popes lesse potent then in former times for their strength in Italy was more encreased in that age then in ten fore-going but indeed it was the light of the Gospel that began about these times to dawn every where that made way for dispelling those chains of darknesse with which both Prince and people had in those former ages been enfettered So as the Pope fearing lest all should fall from him as some Germane Princes Republiques and Cities had already done was fain to comply with the French King to submit to the Emperor and to Court the King of England by the intercession of foraine Princes for a reconcilement But to proceed from Henry the eighth of England the Father to Mary Queen of the same Realm his daughter of whom and her wisdome the Pontificians so much boast It is certain that she entred her raign with the breach of her publique faith For whereas the Crown was set on her head by the German and Commons of Suffolk although they knew her to be a Papist which shewes that the godly Protestant usually nicknamed by those that are prophane lustfull and Popishly affected is the best Subject any Soveraign can be happy in yet she in one of her first acts of Councell took order for their restraint long before the Masse and Latine Service were generally received in London it self and caused that Diocesse to taste the sharpest Inquisition and persecution that raged during her raign which was happily shortened by her husbands contemning her person and her enemies conquering her Dominions neither of which she ever had power to revenge or recover so as though the cause of her death proceeded from no outward violence yet was her end as inglorious and miserable as her raign had been turbulent and bloody She might have taken warning by the sudden and immature death of James the fifth King of Scotland her cousin Germane who raising persecution in Scotland against his loyall and innocent Protestant Subjects in the yeere 1539. burning some exiling and imprisoning others and forcing many to blaspheme in abjuring the known Truth by the advice and procurement of James Beton Archbishop of St Andrews and David Beton Abbot of Arbroth his brother never saw good day after two brave young Princes his sons were the yeer following cut off by abortive ends in their cradles Wars to his great losse and disadvantage were raised between himself and his Uncle Henry the eighth King of England and all things fell out so crosse to his haughty and vast minde as it hastened his death which fell out in the yeere 1542. SECT. XV WEre the Histories of Popish Prelates worthy to be joyned to those of Kings and Princes wee might fill up a large Tract with Gods judgements powred upon them For as most of them have been given up to lust and crapulositie so have many of them been bitter enemies of the truth and stingie persecutors We have seen the fall of the Cardinall of Guise and all ages have cause to admire the exemplary judgements of God powred out upon that bastard-slip Stephen Gardner Bishop of Winchester in the very instant of his plauditees and caresses for the vivicombury of reverend Latimer and learned Ridley But I shall content my selfe to have abstracted as a taste for the rest the notorious punishments inflicted by a higher hand upon two Arch-Prelates the one of England the other of Scotland Thomas Arundell Arch-bishop of Canterbury having been the successefull traytor by the help of his reverend fellow-Bishops to establish Henry the 4th in the Throne of R. the second his liege Lord and Cousin-German pressed the new King whose broken title needed his Prelates supportment to use his temporall sword for the destroying the disciples of John Wicklesse whose numbers were so increased at that time as they even filled the kingdome the King assents and having by their mercilesse instigation shed the bloud of Gods Saints he raigned neither long nor happily H. 5. a brave and martiall Prince his son succeeding him the Protestants began to meet more publikely and to professe the truth more openly then before the Archbishop thereupon renews his former suit to the son he had before pressed with successe upon the father and prevailed In particular he first aimed at the destruction of Sir John de Old Castle Knight commonly called the Lord Cobham who had most affronted him This noble Gentleman was extracted from an ancient Family of Wales where he had large possessions and much alliance by whose means he after lay long-hidden there notwithstanding all the search his bloudy enemies made after him he had issue by Katherine daughter of Richard ap Yevan his first wife John who died before himself and Henry de Old Castle who survived him and to whom King Henry the sixth in the 7th yeare of his raign restored divers Mannors and Lands which had been entailed upon him he married to his last wife Joan the sole daughter and heire of Sir John de la Pole Knight whom he had begotten upon the sole daughter and heire of the Lord Cobham of Kent which Joan had been first married to Sir Robert de Hemenhale a Suffolk Knight and was secondly the wife of Sir Reginald de Braybroke Knight by whom shee had onely issue that survived her the said Sir John de Old Castle her third husband in her right enjoyed the Castle of Couling in Kent and many other large and great possessions and by the marriage of her also he was neerly allied to the Duke of Suffolk the Earl of Devonshire and many other great Peers of the Realme at that time and did doubtlesse enjoy the stile and title of Baron Cobham as is infallibly proved by severall Writs of Summons sent unto him being all entred upon Record in the Close Rolls by which he was summoned to assist in the House of Peers in Parliament by that name in the time of H. 4. and H. 5. All which I have thought fit to transmit to posterity touching this noble martyr being no where to be found in any publike story not onely to shew how many supportments he had besides the favour of King Henry himself to have retarded the Clergie from questioning him but also how easily he was destroyed by the bloudy Prelates of those endarkened times when the Soveraign had but permitted them the use of his power to ancillate to their cruell resolutions of which impotent act of the Kings saith Archbishop Parker himselfe Rex virum clarum sibique familiarissimum
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
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
at any time excused by the inadvertent default of the Priest admits the losse opposition And I have often wondred why some of that active rabble could not as well and as secretly on the sudden have supposited true flesh instead of the Hostia as they have by an insensible legerdemaine sprinkled pure and lively bloud from a lancinated singer upon the Wafer Cake it selfe Certainly there is no truth in Scripture more plainly set down then that doctrine of the Church of England and of the more Orthodox reformed Churches in which they maintaine and teach that Christs body is ascended into heaven and there remaineth as visibly and circumscriptively as it did upon earth before it ascended that it is onely present given and taken in the Sacrament after an heavenly and spirituall manner and that to worship it or make it a sacrifice are blasphemous and dangerous deceits from all which it will undoubtedly and necessarily follow that Christs body is no more present at the Sacrament really and carnally after the words of Consecration then it was present with the Bread before it was brought into the Church or with that which is left after the administration of the Sacrament ended and is carried againe out of the Church where also it may as lawfully be adored as at any time during the holy administration it selfe each adoration being grosse Idolatry Were the ignorantest men and silliest women able in Queene Maries dayes to assert this truth even by dispute against those bloudy Bishops and Idolatrous Priests that would have obtruded Christs reall presence in the Sacrament and their blasphemous sacrifice of the Masse upon them and after to die for it and shall wee not thinke thousands will be now ready also in all humilitie and patience to lay downe their lives for the same Truth How dangerous in all ages this idolatrous adoration or bowing to Images Altars the Hostia Reliques and such other trumpery hath been to the very moderate Papists themselves appeares by a pretty relation in the History of learned De Thou That Francis the second in the yeare 1559. being perswaded by the Cardinall of Lorraine and some others of his faction that there was no way to discover and irretiate the Protestants like that of their Images did cause them to be erected and set up with Candles burning before them in severall streets and eminent places of Paris to which there assembled divers tankard-bearers scullions and other such like of the dregs and scumme of the people who to the shame of the Priests and all Church-Discipline prophanely chanted and sang before them And when any passed by were he Papist or Protestant if he did not presently deliver them money towards the maintenance of those Tapers and adore the Idoll they fell upon him and not contented to make him tast of their fists and handy-blowes or to throw him into the dirt and trample on him did after all those grosse abuses carry him to prison there to be further questioned many sober Papists having hast of businesse not seeing the Images or otherwise not regarding the disorderly carroling of such a company of Varlets were by them basely assaulted beaten and spoiled to the great distaste and open repining of the best and discreetest Citizens though otherwaies truly caec-obedient and zealous Romanists SECT. XXII YEt must we not think that Heresie or Heretiques ought so to be indulged as thereby to be confirmed and made more pertinacious in their heresies They ought to be instructed reproved and discountenanced and if they prove irrecoverably obstinate exiled Wee see God himself commanded the Jewes to put an Idolater and a blasphemer to death and though I do not conceive that to be an Evangelicall precept but onely a judiciall law proper and peculiar to that people and Church yet doubtlesse it may thence by the rule of Analogie be concluded that where Idolatry and Heresie are mixed together as amongst Papists and Montanists or Altar-adorers or where blasphemy and heresie meet in one as amongst the Arrians Pelagians or Anabaptists the followers of Sebastian Castellio and James Arminius there a more severe course may be warrantably practised to stop the dispersing of that poyson then for the suppressing of any other Heretiques who are not guilty of those two abominations but onely hold some lesser errours Incomparable Monsieur de Thou saith in the Preface before his History dedicated to Henry the Great of France that exile or banishment was the first and greatest punishment that ever the ancient Church inflicted upon Heretiques which on all sides is acknowledged to have been a true Church as wee see in the banishment of the Manichees under those two pious Emperors Theodosius Valentinian and in the exilement of divers kinds of Heretiques under Constantine and Marcianus But when men have joyned either open rebellion and treason or proditorious positions to their Religion as the Papists or have maintained Anarchicall Theses as a part of their doctrine condemning Monarchie Magistracie and all civill government as the Anabaptists In these cases although they did absolutely defend dogmaticall and fundamentall errors yet were their exilement or a greater punishment justly inflicted on them because the case is now altered from matter of conscience to matter of offence crime Had the Protestants been but once guilty of such an unmatched villanie as the Powder-plot was in any part of the world where they are tolerated they had doubtlesse been for ever rooted out from thence for though some desperate Romanists only were ingaged in the execution yet in the generall questionlesse all the Recusants of England knew that a great action was in hand against Church and State and that their Romish Synagogue was to be erected in Great Britain upon the ruines of them both And for the prosperity of it as Henry Garnet himself confessed they all prayed Nay when divers English Papists admonished by the guilt of their own conscience fled upon the discovery thereof into France and were kindly received there by the Governour of Callis and he comforting them in respect they had left their countrey estates and friends No saith one of them to him again Wee grieve not at all for those losses but that so brave and excellent an action meaning the Powder-treason had no better successe At which answer the said Governour was so extremely incensed as hee often after himself related to the same de Thou who delivers the Story that hee verily thought to have precipitated the varlet headlong into the sea And as for their Romish doctrines manifestly tending to treason conspiracy and rebellion they were so exactly collected together into one bo ly by learned Bishop Morton and published in the yeere 1605. a little after the discovery of that treason as wee shall need a great deal of charity to believe they can be good subjects in and under any Protestant Prince or State Neither do the Anabaptists come much short of the Papists in their dangerous tenets or