c. Yet did he run into Rebellion again and committed great slaughters By which they in those days and their Posterity since have verified the Prophecy which Giral Cambr. mentions That after the first Invasion of the English they should spend many Ages in frequent Conflicts Battels and Murders and that almost all the English should be driven out of Ireland c. and transmitted to Rome which were confirmed by a Bull from Pope Adrian and by the delivery of a Ring in token of his Investiture to which both Clergy and Laity did consent and sware Homage and Fealty to him in a Publick Convention at * Mat. Paris Giral Cambr. Lismore where the Laws of England were also thankfully received and they all sworn to observe them and afterward he gave it to his Son John and the Pope confirmed it And in the Synod at Cashell they did unanimously before Christianus President thereof acknowledge the King's Ancient Right to Ireland and enjoyn'd all to be subject unto him And there and at another General Synod held at Armagh they order'd and decreed That the Church of Ireland should observe all Divine Offices that the Church of England did and there also was the King's lawful Right again confess'd and submitted unto and for Four hundred years after it was called the King's Land of Ireland and by many Acts of Parliament Collodion of Statutes declared to be appending and belonging and knit unto England So was it in the Reign of King Henry the Eighth when by the States of the Realm he was declared King thereof And 11 of Queen Eliz. her Title to that Kingdom is recogniz'd in Parliament and declar'd to be very Ancient and derived from Gurmund Son of Belin King of Brittain Lord of Bayon in Spain some of whose Subjects he permitted to live in that Island and sent Guides with them to settle them in it who with their Posterity ought therefore to be subject unto England as the Inhabitants of the English Plantations in America now are But though the Title of England to that Kingdom be so clear so very ancient and just yet they have openly rebell'd five times in less than fourscore years beginning in the Year 1567. Two other Rebellions were also contriv'd and resolved on within that space to which they had Promises of Foreign Aid but were by God's Providence discover'd and prevented beside that intended and begun by three of their Principal Cities in the beginning of King James's Reign So very prone and apt they have always been to Rebel upon the Accession of Princes to the Throne or when England was engag'd in Wars either Domestick or Forreign And the like opportunity they made use of in the late unhappy War violating all Laws of God Nature and Nations and throwing off their Allegiance to their undoubted Soveraign as soon as the Troubles began in this Kingdom To which Wickedness their Clergy of all sorts did then seduce them telling them That Faith was not to be kept with Hereticks That the Pope being God's Vicar Pro-Deus as Mart. Azpilcueta calls him had Power to depose Heretical Princes and that they would do God and the Church good Service in killing Hereticks Upon which they ran furiously to commit those horrid Acts which they thought meritorious And so cunningly did they draw Arguments from Religion Honour and Profit that they made the English Pale break out which neither the Pope's Bulls nor the Declarations of the Divines of Salamanca and Valedolid could instigate them unto in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth But now they had better digested the Romish Tenets and the Priests appear'd every where in the Head of their Troops and in sharp and bloody Oratory animated them to go on What the Jesuits had wrote was become Canonical and the Actions of others were now to be imitated Why should not they be as blindly Zealous as any of their Religion had been They knew the Merindolians and Calabrians were murder'd for their Aversion to the Romish Religion that Alphonsus Diazius came in great Zeal from Rome and kill'd his own Brother in Germany for being a Protestant They had heard how many had been martyr'd here in the Reign of Queen Mary and what numbers the Duke de Alva had executed in the Netherlands The Massacre of Paris was fresh in their memory where and in other parts of France the French King boasted in his Letters to the Pope that he had cut off 70000 Hereticks for which there were solemn Processions at Rome and a Jubilee granted to all Christendom by the Pope who by Cardinal Vrsinus gave thanks to the French King for that good Service and desir'd him to go on and extirpate Heresie out of his Kingdoms They knew the many Plots and Confederacies against Queen Elizabeth and King James and how some of those monstrous Parricides gloried in their Sin at their Execution And beside these bloody Examples they had the Authority of their Learned Writers for the lawfulness of such Actions De Reg. l. 6. c. 6. Mariana had told them That if the Prince wont be advis'd they may take up Arms against him and if nothing else will do they may kill him And Emanuel Sa had said When once he is Excommunicated the People who have sworn Allegiance to him may depose him and any one may be his Executioner Lib. 6. c. 3. 6. And Suarez had encourag'd them to it likewise telling them If Subjects were once absolv'd from their Oaths they might rise up against their Natural Prince and kill him And their great Cardinal Bellarmin left them also many rebellious Instructions De Cler. lib. 1. c. 29. too tedious to relate and said That all agree that if the King be Tyrannical or Heretical he may and ought to de deprived of his Kingdom Nay he adds to prevent an Objection Si hoc minus factum sit priscis temporibus causa est quia deerant vires De Pont. l. 3. c. 7. though he could not but know that Tertullian and St. Austin tell us the quite contrary But these Modern Authors having said otherwise their Authority did soon prevail and having both Precedents and Commands for such horrid Acts they took up Arms and committed the most execrable Villanies that ever any Mortal read or heard of Some of their chief Prelates and greatest Clergy-men being their Officers and Commanders and others writing and preaching in defence of their Wickedness I might name many but shall only tell you that their Bishop of Ferns calls it a just War Bleeding Iphigenia and says They were forced to take Arms to avoid their own Destruction and in the necessary Defence of their Estates and Religion And how much he and the rest of their Bishops opposed the Cessation is notoriously known and did not Father Molief cause them contrary to the Law of Arms to tear the Heralds Coat who proclaim'd the Peace at Lymerick for which he had Thanks from the Nuncio and the Apostolick
Imprimatur C. Alston R. P. D. Henrico Episc Lond. Ã Sacris Novemb. 4. 1690. A SERMON Preach'd to the Protestants OF IRELAND IN THE CITY of LONDON At St. Helens Octob. 23. 1690. BEING The Day Appointed by Act of Parliament in IRELAND FOR AN Anniversary Thanksgiving For the Deliverance of the Protestants of that Kingdom from the Bloody Massacre begun by the Irish Papists on the 23d of October 1641. By RICHARD Lord Bishop of Killala Printed at the Earnest Request of many of the Gentry of Ireland LONDON Printed for Robert Clavel at the Peacock in St. Paul's Church-yard 1691. 2 CHRON. xxviii 9. Behold because the Lord God of your Fathers was wroth with Judah he hath delivered them into your hands and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up to Heaven WHEN the Royal Tribe of Judah did highly offend and displease Almighty God when the many signal Mercies and Favours which he had bestowed upon them could not oblige them to obey his Laws and keep his Commandments he afflicts them with many and great Judgments to see if that could reduce them to Obedience He had long waited for their Conversion and sent his Prophets early and late to admonish and forewarn them of their danger He courted and allur'd them with Temporal Blessings and promised them a perpetual continuance of his Favour But when all these Methods proved ineffectual and nothing could work upon them he then showr'd down the Vials of his Wrath and Indignation Beside their great and deserved Sufferings mentioned in other places this Chapter tells you that God delivered them into the Hands of a Forreign Prince who smote them and carried a vast Multitude of them Prisoners to Damascus This was a very great and a heavy Punishment to be forced from their plentiful Habitations to live in Exile and Bondage poor and unpitied groaning with the weight of their uneasie Chains and languishing in dark and loathsome Dungeons But when even this could have no influence upon them he afflicts them with a Domestick and Intestine War Their own Brethren rose up against them Verse 6 and cruelly slaughter'd a Hundred and twenty Thousand in one day who were all Valiant Men. A sad and dismal sight to see so many weltring in their blood The Greatest and most Honourable Courtiers were then also kill'd and Two Hundred Thousand Women and Children were led Captives to Samaria Thus dangerous and fatal is it to provoke and incense the Lord. This Punishment did far exceed the other The Wounds which we receive from a Friend's Sword are most painful and tormenting Psal 55.13 David says Had it been an Enemy I could have born it but it was thou mine equal and acquaintance The Laws of God and Nature are more violated by Domestick Feuds and Treasons than by Forreign Quarrels and Invasions And none more rigid and unmerciful than those of our own House and Country This was evidently seen in the Cruelties of the Men of Israel who not only kill'd such a prodigious number of their Brethren and took much Spoil from them Verse 15 but brought away many Thousands of them and their Children naked and barefoot feeble and wounded to be their Bondmen and Vassals And so merciless and severe were they in all respects that a Prophet is sent to reprove and rebuke them who with undaunted Courage stands at the head of their bloody Troops and cries out Behold because the Lord God of your Fathers was wroth with Judah he hath delivered them into your hands and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up to Heaven In which you may observe First God's delivering the men of Judah into the hands of the men of Israel Secondly The Reason of it because he was wroth with them Thirdly The Prophet's Reproof of the Cruelty of the Men of Israel for slaying their Brethren with a Rage that reached up to Heaven First God's delivering the Men of Judah into the hands of the Men of Israel The whole Scripture doth abundantly declare how merciful and gracious God is how slow to anger and how unwilling to punish But when his Mercies are slighted his Favours rejected and all his Invitations and Threatnings are vilified and contemned he then exerts his Power his Veracity and Justice and makes himself terrible to the Children of Men by throwing down his Judgments upon them Here you see the Men of Judah were given up That Tribe which was to be eternally famous by our Saviour's Birth that very Tribe did he suffer to be thus severely punished Whence 't is evident that God exempts none but whosoever sins shall be punished That Nation or Family that offends God and runs into open Hostility against him shall suffer If he spared not Judah none must hope for Pardon and Immunity And if you search the Divine Annals you 'll find that when-ever they wallowed in Sin and slept in security then did God rouze them with the noise of War and brought Devastations and Desolations upon them He surrounded them with Enemies on every side and did by them lash them in when they ran into Rebellion against him And if he used them thus if he spared not the Natural Branches take heed lest he spare not you for thus will he deal with all who will not be reformed He will withdraw his Protection and leave them to themselves and let their Enemies invade their Houses and ruine their Country of which the many Conquests in Judea and the Dispersion of their Tribes over all the Earth is a remarkable and dreadful Example The Psalmist tells us Psal 34 7. The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them But they who will not fear him shall have no such ministration and attendance Their Guardian-Angels remove as they did from the Temple before Titus sack'd Jerusalem when as Josephus and Eusebius tell us a Voice was heard Let us depart hence and they were left to themselves and lay open to the Assaults of their Enemies and were then soon ruin'd and scatter'd up and down the World near two Millions of them being destroyed in sour Years Eleven Hundred Thousand fell in the City Ninety Seven Thousand were taken Prisoners and Thirty of them were sold for a Peny Thus lamentable and dreadful is the Condition of that People who are forsaken of the Lord who are left void and destitute of his Protection I will forsake them and hide my face from them and many evils and troubles shall befal them so that they will say in that day Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not amongst us Deut. 31.17 Beware then of driving God away from you where he withdraws and absents himself no good thing can continue While we are his People he will be our God but no longer If we renounce our Allegiance to a Mortal Prince he 'll soon with-hold his Favours from us and Correct us according to the nature of our Crimes And
Benediction And were not all Excommunicated who adhered to that Peace I could trace them from place to place and shew you how vigorous and active they were in all parts of the Kingdom But I hasten You see by their Books and Practices they hold it lawful to extirpate Protestant Kings and their Subjects and while they retain such Principles what Safety can we expect What Protestant Prince and Country is not in danger What may they not fear when the Fathers of their Church who should restrain them from such horrid Murthers do by Precept and Example prompt them unto them and justifie them by Religious Arguments And if their People may be absolv'd from their Oaths of Allegiance as the Duke of Suevia was by Gregory the Seventh from his Oath to the Emperour Henry the Fourth and the English by Pope Pius in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth how can Princes be secure And while they allow of Equivocating and Mental Reservations in taking of Oaths to what purpose are they administred And while they hold that the Commands of their Superiours must be observ'd as the Command and Will of God there is little likelyhood of Peace hereafter Nor need we wonder at former Conspiracies the Clergy having such power over their Consciences and holding such Principles and approving of such Actions on both which I might abundantly enlarge But having shew'd you how this Rebellion began upon what Principles and at whose Instigation what could follow but the greatest Cruelty that could be committed Of which you expect some Relation and particular Instances also this Day But alas what Heart can think of it what Tongue can express it without great Emotion and Concern The very remembrance of it strikes Dread and Terrour into my Soul For being thus instructed and enraged by the Jesuits Priests and Fryars as the Act of Parliament for the Observation of this Day tells you they began a most cruel bloody and unnatural Rebellion resolving to destroy both Church and State and cut off all the Protestants that would not joyn with them in their Superstitious and Idolatrous Worship To effect which they rose this day in all Parts of the Nation running like Furies up and down breathing forth nothing but Death and finding no delight but in Slaughter their Hands reeking with Blood and their Swords and Skeins dull'd and rebated with hewing Christians in pieces their Zeal hurrying them into the greatest Violations of Religion and Humanity that ever the Sun beheld They fully verified this Text in the greatness of their Rage and spared but few whom they could kill Grey hairs were no protection to the Aged neither could Beauty or Youth find any Mercy from them and even Innocency it self could not save the sucking Infants from being tossed on their Pikes and hung on Tenterhooks It was Crime enough in those poor Souls to be born of Protestant Parents Some tender Virgins fled in Frost and Snow to the Woods and Deserts and when sharp Hunger drove them out of those doleful Solitudes they were catch'd and made a Prey to their Bestial Desires their Shrieks and Tears could no way move them to pity and when by force they had satisfied their Lust they murder'd the very Persons they had embrac'd Hanging and drowning were Acts of Mercy among them for they kill'd Men by degrees as the Tyrant Caligula did In the Castle of Moroghan that they might feel themselves dye tying one naked to a Table and giving him a Gash at every Health they drank until his whole Body was one continued wound Nor were their Women less cruel to their own Sex Bp. Maxwel's Examination barbarously killing the Protestant Women and even their Children as if they had suck'd in ferity with their Milk murdring the Protestants Children Examination of Adam Clover And a Youth not above fourteen years of Age slew fifteen men being disarm'd and in the Stocks and another about twelve kill'd two Women and one Man at the Siege of Agher They brake the Back-bone of a young man Bp. Maxwel's Examination and would not kill him but remov'd him from place to place to eat the Grass of the Field and roasted Mr. Watson alive after they had cut off some pieces of his flesh Exam. of Phil. Taylor and John Wisdom They rip 't up the Bellies of Women and cast their Children to the Swine who eat them and some were delivered of Children while they were hanging They made a man drunk Exam. of Alex. Creighton Ch. Campbell and Geo Cottingham Clerk and then hang'd him They forc'd others to Mass gave them the Sacrament and then murder'd them saying It was no sin to kill Protestants for they were all damn'd already Nay Bp. Maxwel's Examination their Cruelty did extend to the very Cattel of the English cutting pieces out of them alive in which Torment they liv'd some days roaring about the Fields They compell'd some to tread on the Holy Bible cursing it in a horrid manner and saying Exam. of Ed. Slack Rog. Holland and Mr. Dean It had bred all the quarrel They also burnt some Bibles and said It was Hell-fire that burnt and wish'd they had all the Bibles in Christendom to burn with them And they triumph'd and rejoyc'd in the numbers they had kill'd saying Exam. of John Wisdom Phil. Taylor and Marg. Stoakes The Devil was beholding to them for sending him so many Souls to Hell But their Rage against the Clergy was such Mr Harcourt's Martyrology as I am not able to relate nor could you without Horrour and Amazement hear it And the barbarous usage of one of their Wives is not to be nam'd among Christians Mrs. Smithson They drown'd and burnt great numbers and laugh'd at their Cries and Lamentations and took pleasure to hear Men speak as they buried them alive in Ditches Exam. of Antho Stratford Abstract of Irish Massacres They tried whether a Man's Guts or a Dogs were longest and made Candles of a Man's grease in the County of Tyrone and did many other things which Nature loaths and Humanity abhors as may be at large seen in the Examinations taken upon Oath Bp. of Meath by a late eminent and learned Prelate with seven other Reverend Divines Dr. Jones ' Remonstrance Mr. Harcourt's Remonstrance Sir John Temple's Hist Dr. Borlases Hist and in other Books writ on this Tragical Subject to which I refer you and in them you will see that Piso's Head never afforded more pleasure to the inhumane Otho than the dead Carkasses of Protestants did to those men A quick death was the only favour and the greatest Act of Humanity to be expected at their Hands but alas even that was sometimes deny'd though most earnestly desired by those whom they had grievously wounded The whole Kingdom was an Aceldema and nothing but Sighs and Groans were heard throughout the Land When Titus saw Jerusalem in flames and Marcellus beheld Syracusa burning their Words
and Tears did testifie their trouble and concern though Enemies for the destruction of those Noble Places but these men sung with Nero while they burnt our Cities demolished our Churches and buried those Sacred Fabricks in their own Ruins because they had been us'd by Hereticks All the Country was in a flame The Towns were filled with the Blood of the Inhabitants and the Bodies left in many places to be devoured by the Fowls of the Air. Nay Exam. of Mar. Woods Tho. Hewetson and Rob. Collis they violated the very Sepulchres of the Dead dug up their Bodies and threw them into the Sea or into the Fields as unworthy to be interr'd among them Naturalists tell us the fiercest Lions covet Honour more than Revenge they are appeas'd when they see their Enemy on the Ground and give Life to that which yields the Victory but that could not satisfie these Men. To see the Brittish poor and miserable was not enough 't was their Blood alone could quench the thirst of such Canibals I might give you numerous Examples of their Rage and Fury but I shall end the whole Day being little enough to give you a full account of their Villanies which were so great and savage so barbarous and inhumane that no Epithet can reach them no History can parallel them For proof of which you have the undeniable Testimony of the whole Parliament of Ireland who with one Voice tell you in their Act for the keeping this Anniversary That it was a Conspiracy so generally inhumane barbarous and cruel as the like before was never heard off in any Age or Kingdom Which Act we need not wonder they would Repeal it being the united Evidence of those who were met in Parliament from all parts of the Nation and had fully enquired into their Actions and had also many among them who had been Eye-witnesses of their Cruelties to smother which the Irish had used all the Art and Industry imaginable and to terrifie all from any farther search into them did most barbarously murther Arch-deacon Bysse who was appointed by Authority to take Examinations of their Rapines and Murders which in a word were so many and so spitefully acted that the most compendious Writer could scarce comprize them in a Volume and the sharpest Satyrist represent them in their just Characters Such was their Rage thus excessive and immoderate was their Fury that we may say of it Gen. 49.6 7. as Jacob did of the Rage of his Sons O my Soul come not thou into their secret unto their assembly mine Honour be not thou united for in their Anger they slew a man Cursed be their Anger for it was fierce and their Wrath for it was cruel I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel By which pathetical Apostrophe he shews his great and zealous detestation of their Outrage curses their sin and foretells their punishment which was accordingly fulfilled when their Union in Evil was punish'd with a Division and Scattering among the Ten Tribes Neither did these bloody men long escape Vengeance did pursue them close at the Heels None values the Executioner when the work is done Alexander was rais'd to punish the Pride of the Persians and Caesar and Pompey the Lust and Luxury of the Romans But when God had done his work with them they came to sudden and untimely ends And so did our just God deal with the merciless Irish for beside vast numbers which were slain in the War great Plagues and sharp Famines came among them so very great that they did eat one another in some places The Wrath of God fell heavy upon them as it did on the Israelites and they were most grievously punish'd for the Blood which they had spilt Which might well have terrified them from committing the like wickedness any more but alas so inveterate were they against us that there is no expectation of Peace among them longer than they are kept under Their Religion alters their very Morals sours their Nature and imbitters their Spirits And all the Favours and kindness we can shew them prove ineffectual For was not the last Rebellion begun when they enjoy'd their Estates and had the free Exercise of their Religion When they were Members of Parliament and Magistrates of Corporations When their Lawyers who were then and are now the contrivers of our Ruin did Practice in our Courts And when they had all the other Priviledges they could reasonably desire And now the whole Government of the Nation and both Civil and Military Employments could not satisfie them They have a Natural Aversion and Antipathy to us And have resolv'd as the Jesuit Campian declar'd here to be our Enemies for ever And I fear they think themselves oblig'd as O Mahon Disput Apolog. another of that Order says they are to joyn unanimously in the extirpation of Hereticks and then undoubtedly when they have the Power in their hands we must expect all the Mischief they can do us Of which we have lately had another fatal Instance the whole Nation rising again in Arms seizing our Houses plundring us of our Goods and driving us into Exile and Banishment when we had liv'd Peaceably Hospitably and most Obligingly among them But God in Judgment remembred Mercy he delivered us from their Rage he preserved us in our sudden Flight and when no Ships could be had he brought some of us in Open Boats to this Charitable and Compassionate Nation where we have been kindly receiv'd and many thousands have been Charitably relieved which with all gratitude and thankfulness must be for ever remembred And God has rais'd us up a Glorious Deliverer who has expos'd himself to as great dangers as ever any Prince did to restore us to our Country again He succeeds his Illustrious Ancestors in their Hereditary Zeal for the Reformed Religion as he does in their Valour and rescues us from Popish Tyranny and Slavery as they did the Netherlands in the last Century And by his Wisdom Conduct and Courage he has obtain'd a Victory which is the Admiration of this and will be the Wonder of future Ages By which the Metropolis of our Nation and many other great Towns are preserv'd from Flames and the Lives of many Thousands of Protestants are saved and the whole Kingdom in a happy way of being reduc'd and we who were forc'd to fly have now a joyful Prospect of returning home For which let us pay him all Duty and Honour all Fidelity and Allegiance Let him be as dear to us as David was to the Israelites and as Titus and Constantine were to the Romans Let us love him as the Father of our Country and the Defender of our Faith Let us pray that his Arm may be strong and his Sword Victorious And may the God of Battels Crown him with Success in all his Engagements for the Protestant Religion And let us this day praise and adore our God for that and all other Blessings and