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
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
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
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
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