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
unreasonable French Papists being true limbs of the Romish Synagogue whose faith was then faction and whose Religion was then rebellion would embrace no conditions of peace no offers of pacification from their own undoubtedly lawfull and warlike King as long as he continued in the open profession of that truth in which he had been educated under Joan D'Albret hereditary Queen of Navarre his royall and godly mother who also upon her death-bed had expresly charged him never to recede from it This brave Prince seeing nothing but an utter ruine threatened to his kingdome of France either by cantonizing it into Provinces or setting a forainer on the Throne which Charles Lorainer Duke of Maine had out of some ambitious and self-respects of his own a while opposed and prevented in the yeer 1593. submitted himself to a publike recidivation which though it brought on an outward peace to that Realme yet was the King himself never freed from continuall Treasons and Conspiracies hatched against him in the dens and nests of the Jesuites till at the last he perished under one of them to the irreparable losse not only of France but likewise of all Christendome Neither did the Papists cease to vilifie his very act of reconciling himself to their Church saying as Monsieur de Thou himself confesseth that either his conversion was fained as it had been before in the yeer 1572. and that a false Catholike would do more hurt in their Church then a true Heretique or else that he loved the Crown of France better then he did the kingdome of Heaven that to gain that without any inward convincement would turn from one Religion to another SECT. XXV AFter this martiall Prince had deserted the Protestant Religion to the great astonishment and excessive griefe of all the Professors of the Gospel both at home and abroad What did his French Subjects of the Helvetick Confession instantly rebell against him and deny him due and lawfull obedience as his Popish Subjects had done before Nothing lesse but all the disobedience they shewed to him or expressed towards him consisted in humble supplications and Remonstrances that they might still enjoy the publique libertie of their Consciences and he as graciously yeelded to their just and Christian Petitions and all the time he raigned never forgat their cause or prayers or suffered any of his bloudy Prelates or Jesuited Counsellors to molest vex cite fine suspend deprive or imprison any of them and much lesse to butcher them or draw bloud from them because he knew every one of those acts are essentially true and down-right persecution as well as shedding their blouds onely there is a graduall difference in the Martyrdomes of the sufferers as well as in the cruelty of the destroyers As strange was the example of Henry the eight of England who led by the advice of some of his Sycophanticall Popish Prelates thought to have established the Romish Religion without admitting the influence of the Papacy whose unerring spirit is to that Synagogue like the soule to the body or the Sunne to the firmament But he soone saw his error and would doubtless had he lived have made that integrall and saving Reformation which his Royall Sonne so piously finished for he himselfe and his new Popery were more abhorred by the Bishop of Rome and his Vassalls as a monstrous and inconsistent Church then the Princes of Germanie themselves who had made a rationall and intire defection from that man of sonne For the Pope and his Conclave employed Cardinall Poole Henry the Eighths neare kinsman as their Ambassadour to Charles the fifth the Emperour to exhort and perswade him instantly to invade the King of Englands Dominion rather then to make warre against the Turke himselfe And the reason why the Pope was so vehement in his prosecution against that King doth palpably and fully appeare from the very words ensuing of the Decree of Pope Boniface the eighth in his Extravagants set forth by himselfe in the eighth yeare of his Papacy about the yeare 1300. Subesse Romano pontifici saith he omni humanae creaturae declaramus dicimus definimus pronunciamus omnino esse de necessitate salut is We declare define and pronounce that it is necessary for every one that is to be saved to be subject to the Pope of Rome The same doctrine doth the Bull of Pope Pius the fifth bearing date there in the yeare 1564. the Romish Catechisme set out a little after doth maintain and confirme in the tenth eleventh and twelfth Sections thereof in their exposition of the twentieth Article of their new Creed to which Creed their Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks are compelled to sweare that they hold it to be the true Catholick faith it being strongly disputed for also by Suarez in his first booke and twelfth Chapter against the Lutherans by Gregorie de Valentia in his Analysis lib. 6. cap. 1. and by Bellarmine in his third booke and fifth Chapter of the Church Militant That though any Prince Prelate Priest State or Church should receive all the other parts of the Romish faith Religion abolishing the doctrine and discipline of the Protestants and should onely deny the Popes Supremacy and subjection to him yet they should still remaine damnable and wicked hereticks So as the light of the Sunne is not more cleare then that the Pope in this one particular imitates God himselfe hating more a linsey-woolsey mungrell halting Popish Protestant then a true and zealous one Blessed therefore are those Monarchs Princes and States who preserve the Evangelick truth without the least intermixtures of false doctrine and Pontificall additions for to halt between light and darknesse and to intermix Idolatrous actions or Popish errors with saving truths will necessarily draw on the ruine of the godly and the hatred of the Papacy and bring downe Gods judgements as causally as an absolute entire and plenary defection and recidivation And then if the Popes headship be once admitted a volume would not suffice how not onely every proud Prelate but even every Popish Priest might trample on the Soveraignes Crowne and Dignitie murther their fellow-subjects and be guilty of a thousand other villanies without dreading or regarding the punishment of the Temporall sword SECT. XXVI MAtthew Paris the Monke of St Albanes a witnesse without exception doth truly relate a pithy Story to shew the ancient deplorable and base state and condition of the English Kings under the Papall tyranny That Pope Innocent the 4th in the year 1253. in the 37th yeare of Henry the third being set in his Conclave in the middle of his Cardinalls after mature deliberation and advisement upon a very small and trifling occasion brake out into this vehement Interrogation Nonne Rex Anglorum saith he noster est vafsallus ut plus dicam mancipium qui possumus eum nutu nostro incarcerare ignominiae mancipare That is Is not the King of England our vassall or to say more is he not our slave who have power as often as wee please either to mue him up in prison or to expose him to ignominy Justly therefore did Henry the eight of England free himselfe from this Papall Tyranny and if he had been possibly sensible of those bodily pangs or inward remorses and horrors upon his death-bed which the Papists mention yet could not these divine flagellations be imputed to his defection from Rome and error as they pretend but to his shedding of so much innocent bloud of Gods Saints by the instigation of his sanguinary Prelates For in France after that barbarous and cruell Massacre in the yeare 1572. upon the eighth day of November the same yeare there appeared a dreadfull Comet touching which some learned Protestant immediately published an elaborate and exquisite Poem presaging that it was Gods Herald or Messenger to denounce his judgement shortly to ensue upon that Kingdome for their newly perpetrated inhumane butcherie His verses were 〈◊〉 dispersed when there suddainly broke out in Poitou a new 〈◊〉 and before unknowne disease commonly called the Poitâ—vin Cholick which wasted that goodly Kingdome for above thirty yeares after It was accompanied with so many extreame paines and torments not onely in the outward parts of the body but in the inwards and vitals also as it drew on divers horrid convulsions and in many blindnes it self before they dyed The strange originall the hidden nature and those unparalleld torments it produced sometimes resembling the very stabs and gashes made with swords and poygnards gave all impartiall judgements just ground to conclude it to be the finger of God himself in punishing the mercilesse murthers of his dear Saints And a blessed warning it may be to all Christian Kingdoms and States that a seasonable remedie to stop the growing of the plague pestilence and other severall diseases and judgements may questionlesse be applyed by inhibiting and abolishing the power and malice of such Popish Prelates as count it their chiefest solace to waste and persecute the pious and godly Protestants that so the true Catholick Church might againe flourish as it did in the Primitive times under learned religious sober faithfull preaching Pastors and Ministers Which incomparable blessing the Divine Providence vouchsafed to the Scottish French and Helvetick Churches upon their first Reformation The Printer to the Reader I Am here courteous Reader instead of troubling thee with an Index of the Errata to give thee notice that so great care hath been used in this second Impression as it needs none neither was it my fault but my mis-fortune that the first had so many greater errours as well as lesser slips for I had the use of a very imperfect Copie transcribed from the Originall by two or three severall hands in some hast by which I was mis-led almost in every Section Those errours and such as escaped the Presse are now amended to thy hand FINIS * Lutherus paulò ante mortem ageâ— cum Philâ—ppo Melancthone fatetur in negotio Coenaeâ—n mium esse factum c. Dr Rainoldus prelectione 4a. in lib. Apocryphos p. 53. Col. 1. Et Orat. Isaac Bootii Vesalii de controversiis Sacramentariis Edit. Basilere Ao Dm. 1601. ad Calcem Polani Analys. in Hoâ—â—seam p. 405. * John Dudley Duke of Northumberland The late inhumane maâ— sacre and buâ—chery in Ireland hath since exceeâ—ed it
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
other Anabaptists though most necessarily cut off by the sword of the Magistrate for their blasphemous opinions and lawless Tenets tending to the utter subversion of all Civill government The Anabaptists in their Dialogues published in the English tongue in Queen Maries dayes though they craftily withdrew many of their Anarchicall Tenets agreeing almost verbatim with the workes since penned by James Arminius and the latter Anabaptists doe extoll that Servetus as a Prophet of the Lord and their numbers are at this day so increased as they constitute or make a considerable party in divers parts of Christendome But those cursed enemies of the truth that thinke by persecuting it to abolish it as they fight against God himselfe in so doing so have they heretofore and shall still in despight of all their devillish policy for the time to come increase and propagate the same This if all other Instances wanted would sufficiently appeare in that famous example of an English Schoolmaster a most zealous Papist in the dayes of King Edward the sixt who afterwards in the beginning of Queen Maries government frequenting the fires of some of the Martyrs was so convinced with hearing what they spake and seeing how chearfully they suffered as he himselfe relinquishing the former ignorance and idolatry he had so long embraced at last witnessed the truth with his own bloud Not he onely but many thousands also besides were doubtless inabled by the cleare shining of those fires to discerne the foulnesse of those mysteries of darkness under which they had been so long held captive And after her short Raigne infamoused by so much bloud-shed was expired it facilitated the way for her royall sister Elizabeth to restore the truth at an easie rate When the Executioner came behind John Hus to kindle the pile that encompassed him Come hither my friend said he and kindle it here before for had I feared what thou bringest I had not appeared at this Stake to day His death brought so incredible progresse to the true Church in Bohemia as did also that of Jerome of Prague his Contemporanie that their bloudy persecutors had just cause within a few yeares after their decease to acknowledge their own errour in having hastened their ends As fruitfull a seed-time to the Church in France proved the death of Annas Burgus a Senator of Paris in the yeare 1559. under Francis the second A man he was so vertuous and innocent in his life as some of the very enemies of the Truth laboured his delivery when he was in prison and so resolute and chearfull in his death as it incouraged thousands in that Kingdome in the constant profession of the Reformed Religion What better successe had all the bloudy executions of Ferdinand de Toledo that merciless Duke of Alva and of his new erected Bishops in the lower Germany but that the Gospel at the last got the victory over hell and all the powers of darkness Neither indeed could those cruell Inquisitors have expected other issue had they but truly considered what Religion had been and that Princes and States may command the bodies but not the soules and consciences of men Which having been once perswaded by Instruction and Information to embrace and beleeve any opinions though hereticall and therefore much more the Truth it selfe can never be driven from them but by the same meanes of a further and more cleare Instruction The godly have ever lookt upon chaines prisons racks and fires as the tryall and reward of their faith more fearing to doe evill then to suffer evill well knowing that they shall neither suffer more nor their cruell enemies be able to inflict more then God shall turne to his own endlesse glory and their everlasting good Did the Heathen Poet desire to be sent back to the Mines a life more tedious then that of the Gallyes rather then he would commend a few bad Verses contrary to his judgement Could Epicurus that impure Philosopher say of a wise man that if he were scorched in Phalaris Bull he would not be moved with it but onely cry out Dulce est ad me non attinet Or the young Stoick in Gellius to maintaine the Apathie of his Sect neither groane nor frowne in the midst of a burning feaver And shall we thinke that Gods Saints who have their reason heightened and irradiated by grace and their soules immoveably founded upon a lively and living faith will feare to lose their estates liberties and lives for the Truths sake No doubtless but as the Gold is tryed by the Furnace and cleared from the drosse so in time of persecution they shall be discerned from all hypocrites Atheists Libertines and Time-servers whatsoever SECT. X. BUt oh that Princes and Great ones would shake off those fleshflyes and Sycophants who tell them the contrary and know the Truth to be that nothing can more infamouze their raignes and memories to Posterity nothing bring more inevitable ruine to their Persons nothing finally prove so deadly a Consumption amongst their posterity as to inforce the Consciences of their Subjects by fines imprisonments subscriptions recantations depauperations and death Charles the fift having obtained the Imperiall Chaire by the money and meanes of Henry the eighth of England was the most potent Emperour that ever Germany had as long as he maintained the peace of Religion but having yeelded to the Popes instigations and prospered a while in his intended extirpation of the Truth he found at last by experience what his brave and valiant Generall Castaldus had foretold him That these violent proceedings would in the end prove fatall to himselfe For having first fled away at mid-night in a cold and rainy season from Onspruch for feare of the Protestant Army he was afterwards in stead of setling his sonne Philip in his own Chaire which he had fully intended faine to surrender up the Empire to Ferdinand his Brother who for divers moneths before had entred into a secret league with the Protestant Princes of Germany and so having lived a few yeares after in a despised and disconsolate solitude heat last ended his life very ingloriously His sonne Philip the second the most inveterate enemy of the Gospel that ever lived did not onely set up Shambles and Butcheries for Gods Saints in most of his own large Dominions by his Inquisitors but continually ayded the Rebells in France England and Ireland against their lawfull Soveraignes and plotted to invade all other Protestant Dominions in Christendome that so at last by one generall carnage of them all he and his holy Father the Pope might have shared the Christian world by a double Monarchy of the Church and Empire between them But did this bloudy Prince prosper in these his ambitious and cruell designes Certainly nothing lesse for what got he by his invading France by land England and Ireland by Sea and by his large Pensions conferred on the traytors and secret enemies of either State but that in the issue having wasted about
and three of them by violent deaths and in his posterity ended the Valesian line the Crown devolving thereupon to the royall branch of Clermont commonly called Bourbon whom his sons had most bitterly hated and persecuted Of all his five daughters three died issuless and the eldest that had issue was cut off by poyson Nay his very Bastard son Henry of Engolisme a great actor amongst others in the massacre of Paris perished also by the stab of Philip Altovit a Florentine his old enemy in the yeer 1586. during the raign of Henry the third his brother SECT. XII FOr Charles the ninth third son of Henry the second aforesaid that succeeded Francis the second his brother in the Kingdome of France in the yeer 1560. had he continued his raign with as much mercy and wisdome as he began it or followed the grave and seasonable advice of Michael Hospitalius his Chancellor in his latter yeers as well as he did in his former he had in all likelihood lived as vertuously as hee died miserably Hee had scarce raigned two yeers in peace and plenty when Katherine de Medices his mother desiring to vest and settle the Regencie in her self by raising combustions in the Realm began to perswade her son to revive and renew those persecutions against the Protestants which his father had begun shee reconciled her self to Francis Lorainer Duke of Guise whom but a little before she had justly feared and hated being a secret enemy to Lewes de Clermont Prince of Conde He and the Marshall of St Andrew having gained Annas de Memorancy Constable of France to their party conspired all together for the utter ruine of the truth The Protestants in the mean seeing the King in his Infancy to be held captive as it were by this Triumvirate take up Arms by the Queen-mothers own instigation to maintain the Kings Edict of Pacification published in the yeer 1561. and commonly called The Edict of January The yeer following by the instigation of the same Triumvirate not only the Queen-mother but Anthony de Clermont usually sirnamed Bourbon King of Navar also who yet died a Protestant was drawn on to assail the said Protestants by open force they in the mean time filling the Queen-mothers ears with these vain flatteries that she should soon see the utter ruine of all the Heretikes in France from which time that goodly kingdome so rich peaceable and flourishing for neer upon forty yeers together some short times of truce and peace being interposed was filled with cruelties ravages ravishments blood-shedding battels sires slaughters and all other calamitous desolations that accompany intestine and civill broiles in the issue of all which the Protestants being increased in their strength and numbers obtained a more firm and advantageous peace then ever they had before enjoyed whereas those three Incendiaries of all these miseries perished within a few yeers after by the just judgement of God in the very act of their hostile pursuements of his children The Marshall of Saint Andrew was slain at the battell of Dreux Annas de Memorancie under the very walls of Paris and Francis Lorainer Duke of Guise was pistolled by John Poltrot at the siege of Orleance King Charles seeing that open force could not destroy the truth nor root out the Professors thereof about two yeers before the hellish massacre began at Paris and continued to the perpetuall infamy of France in divers other Cities in that Realm held a secret Councell in the Castle of Blois with Katherine de Medices his mother Alexander and Hercules called also Henry and Francis his two brothers and Henry Lorainer son and heir of the before pistolled Duke Francis Duke of Guise by what means they might best draw the Protestants into their toile to destroy and murther them The same Councell was held again by King Charles in the house of Hieronimo de Gondy at St. Clou and the time and order of the bloody marriage banquet to be served in at the nuptials of the King of Navar with the Lady Margaret his sister was there agreed upon and resolved of almost in the same manner as it was afterwards put in execution upon the 24. day of August being St Bartholomews day in the yeer 1572. in which were most inhumanely slaughtered within the space of few dayes of men women and children many of them also being great and honourable personages of either sex about thirty thousand And while the Duke of Guise was busie in prosecuting that mercilesse and inhumane execution it was seriously advised upon and disputed of in the Queen-mothers Cabinet-councell whether it were not necessary that hee himself and the rest of his family then there should also be dispatched at the same time in that tumult King Charles himself never saw good day after that bloody massacre although his Court sycophants had promised him it should prove the first happy day of his absolute Monarchie for though hee had been long drenched in lust a sin seldome separated from a Persecutor by his ordinary advowtrie with a mean wench of Orleance on whom hee begot Charles of Engolisme after Earle of Auvergne and though he had been trained up by his mother to see the flaughter of beasts and ever in the chases loved to both his hands in the bloud of the fallen game all which might have served to have stupefied his conscience as they did enflame his fierce and cruell nature yet so stinging a remorse in his inward man did ever pursue and haunt him after that mercilesse slaughter accomplished chiefly by his often swearing and forswearing himself by which the Queen of Navar and the Admirall Chasrilion were deceived as that his eyes rolled often uncertainly in the day with feare and suspicion and his sleep was usually interrupted in the night with dismall dreams apparitions like R. 3. of England after the murther of his two Nephews in the Tower of London nay though he survived not this inhumane slaughter sull two yeares yet had he plotted and decreed the death of the said Henry Duke of Guise and the removall of his Queen-mother her instruments from the helm of State But some of his agents that were to have acted these last feats playing false with him as he had some few dayes before the said massacre poysoned that incomparable Princesse for learning and piety Joan D'Albret Queen of Navar Grandmother to Lewes the thirteenth now King of France so did his mother or the Duke of Guise by way of prevention or anticipation minister to him his fatall physick of which after many sharp and grievous torments he deceased upon Whitsunday having not then attained to the five and twentieth yeare of his age in the yeare 1574. the violence of the venome leaving in his intrailes as appeared upon his distection many blew spots and swellings SECT. XIII WE have seen the gain and advantage that King Charles the ninth of France made by his barbarous persecutions 't is likely that those very flatterers
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
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
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