for a Paragon of his age and place having the fewest vices with so many virtues Indeed he was somewhat given to women our Chronicles fathering two base children on him so hard it is to find a Sampson without a Dalila And seeing never King or Kings eldest sonne since the conquest before his time married a subject I must confesse his Match was much beneath himself taking the double reversion of a subjects bed marrying Joan Countesse of Salisbury which had been twice a widow But her surpassing beauty pleads for him herein and yet her beauty was the meanest thing about her being surpass'd by her virtues And what a worthy woman must she needs be her self whose very garter hath given so much honour to Kings and Princes He dyed at Canterbury June the eighth 1376 in the fourty sixth yeare of his age it being wittily observed of the short lives of many worthy men fatuos à morte defendit ipsa insulsitas si cui plus caeteris aliquantulum salis insit quod miremini statim putrescit CHAP. 21. The King HE is a mortall God This world at the first had no other Charter for its being then Gods Fiat Kings have the same in the Present tense I have said ye are Gods We will describe him first as a good man so was Henry the third then as a good King so was Richard the third both which meeting together make a King complete For he that is not a good man or but a good man can never be a good Sovereigne He is temperate in the ordering of his own life O the Mandate of a Kings example is able to do much especially he is 1 Temperate in his diet When Aeschines commended Philip King of Macedon for a joviall man that would drink freely Demosthenes answered that this was a good quality in a spunge but not in a King 2 Continent in his pleasures Yea Princes lawfull children are farre easier provided for then the rabida fames of a spurious ofspring can be satisfied whilest their Paramors and Concubines counting it their best manners to carve for themselves all they can come by prove intolerably expensive to a State Besides many rebellions have risen out of the marriage-bed defiled He holds his Crown immediately from the God of Heaven The most high ruleth in the kingdomes of men and giveth them to whomsoever he will Cujus jussu nascuntur homines ejus jussu constituuntur Principes saith a Father Inde illis potestas unde spiritus saith another And whosoever shall remount to the first originall of Kings shall lose his eyes in discovering the top thereof as past ken and touching the heavens We reade of a place in Mount Olivet wherein the last footsteps they say of our Saviour before he ascended into heaven are to be seen that it will ever lie open to the skies and will not admit of any close or covering to be made over it how costly soever Farre more true is this of the condition of absolute Kings who in this respect are ever sub dio so that no superiour power can be interposed betwixt them and heaven Yea the Character of loyalty to Kings so deeply impress'd in Subjects hearts shews that onely Gods finger wrote it there Hence it is if one chance to conceive ill of his Sovereigne though within the cabinet of his soul presently his own heart grows jealous of his own heart and he could wish the tongue cut out of his tell-tale thoughts lest they should accuse themselves And though sometimes Rebels Atheists against the Gods on earth may labour to obliterate loyalty in them yet even then their conscience the Kings Aturney frames Articles against them and they stand in daily fear lest Darius Longimanus such a one is every King should reach them and revenge himself He claimeth to be supreme Head on earth over the Church in his Dominions Which his power over all persons and causes Ecclesiasticall 1. Is given him by God who alone hath the originall propriety thereof 2. Is derived unto him by a prescription time out of mind in the Law of Nature declared more especially in the Word of God 3. Is cleared and averred by the private Laws and Statutes of that State wherein he lives For since the Pope starting up from being the Emperours Chaplain to be his Patron hath invaded the rights of many earthly Princes many wholsome Laws have been made in severall Kingdomes to assert and notifie their Kings just power in Spiritualibus Well therefore may our King look with a frowning face on such whose tails meet in this firebrand which way soever the prospect of their faces be to deny Princes power in Church-matters Two Jesuites give this farre-fetch'd reason why Samuel at the Feast caused the shoulder of the Sacrifice to be reserved and kept on purpose for Saul to feed on because say they Kings of all men have most need of strong shoulders patiently to endure those many troubles and molestations they shall meet with especially I may well adde if all their Subjects were as troublesome and disloyall as the Jesuites The best is as God hath given Kings shoulders to bear he hath also given them armes to strike such as deprive them of their lawfull Authority in Ecclesiasticall affairs He improves his power to defend true Religion Sacerdotall Offices though he will not doe he will cause them to be done He will not offer to burn incense with Uzziah yet he will burn Idolaters bones with Josiah I mean advance Piety by punishing Profanenesse God saith to his Church Kings shall be thy Nursing-fathers and their Queens thy Nursing-mothers And oh let not Princes out of State refuse to be so themselves and onely hire others it belonging to Subjects to suck but to Princes to suckle Religion by their authority They ought to command Gods Word to be read and practised wherein the blessed Memory of King James shall never be forgotten His Predecessour in England restored the Scripture to her Subjects but he in a manner restored the Scripture to it self in causing the New Translation thereof whereby the meanest that can reade English in effect understands the Greek and Hebrew A Princely act which shall last even when the lease of Time shall be expired Verily I say unto you wheresoever this Translation shall be read in the whole realm there shall also this that this King hath done be told in memoriall of him He useth Mercy and Iustice in his proceedings against Offenders Solomon saith The throne is established by Iustice and Solomon saith The throne is upholden by Mercy Which two Proverbs speak no more contradiction then he that saith that the two opposite side-walls of an house hold up the same roof Yea as some Astronomers though erroneously conceived the Crystalline Sphere to be made of water and therefore to be set next the Primum mobile to allay the heat thereof which otherwise
folk for new money antiquated drugs and making dying mens Physick of dead ingredients He brings not news with a false spie that the coast is clear till death surprises the sick man I know Physicians love to make the best of their patients estate First 't is improper that Adjutores vitae should be Nuncii mortis Secondly none with their good will will tell bad news Thirdly their fee may be the worse for 't Fourthly 't is a confessing that their art is conquer'd Fifthly it will poyson their patients heart with grief and make it break before the time However they may so order it that the party may be inform'd of his dangerous condition that he be not outed of this world before he be provided for another When he can keep life no longer in he makes a fair easie passage for it to go out He giveth his attendance for the facilitating and asswaging of the pains and agonies of death Yet generally 't is death to a Physician to be with a dying man Vnworthy pretenders to Physick are rather foils then stains to the Profession Such a one was that counterfeit who called himself The Baron of Blackamore and feigned he was sent from the Emperour to our young King Henry the sixth to be his principall Physician but his forgery being discovered he was apprehended and executed in the Tower of London Anno 1426. and such the world daily swarms with Well did the Poets feigne Aesculapius and Circe brother and sister and both children of the Sunne for in all times in the opinion of the multitude witches old women and impostours have had a competition with Physicians And commonly the most ignorant are the most confident in their undertakings and will not stick to tell you what disease the gall of a dove is good to cure He took himself to be no mean Doctour who being guilty of no Greek and being demanded why it was called an Hectick fever because saith he of an hecking cough which ever attendeth that disease And here it will not be amisse to describe the life of the famous Quacksalver Paracelsus both because it is not ordinarily to be met with and that men may see what a monster many make a miracle of learning and propound him their pattern in their practice Physick Proffessorâ— at Basil. Philip Theophrastus PARACELSUS He died at Saltzburge Ano. Dom 1540. aged 47 yeares W. Marshall sculprit CHAP. 3. The life of PARACELSUS PHilip Theophrastus Bombastus of Hoenhaim or Paracelsus born as he saith himself in the wildernesse of Helvetia Anno 1493. of the noble and ancient family of the Hoenhaims But Thomas Erastus making strict enquiry after his pedigree found none of his name or kinred in that place Yet it is fit so great a Chymist should make himself to be of noble extraction And let us believe him to be of high descent as perchance born on some mountain in Switzerland As for his Education he himself boasts that he lived in most Universities of Europe surely rather as a traveller then a student and a vagrant then a traveller Yea some will not allow him so much and one who hath exactly measured the length of his life though crowding his pretended travells very close finds not room enough for them But 't is too ridiculous what a Scholar of his relates that he lived ten years in Arabia to get learning and conversed in Greece with the Athenian Philosophers Whereas in that age Arabia the Happy was accursed with Barbarisme and Athens grown a stranger to her self both which places being then subjected to the Turks the very ruines of all learning were ruin'd there Thus we see how he better knew to act his part then to lay his Scene and had not Chronologie enough to tell the clock of time when and where to place his lies to make them like truth The first five twenty years of his age he lived very civilly being thirty years old he came to Basill just at the alteration of Religion when many Papists were expell'd the University and places rather wanted Professours then Professours places Here by the favour of Oecolampadius he was admitted to reade Physick for two years behaved himself fairly till this accident caused his departure A rich Canon of Basill being sick promised Paracelsus an hundred florens to recover him which being restored to his health he denied to pay Paracelsus sues him is cast in his suit the Magistrate adjudging him onely an ordinary fee because the cure was done presently with a few pills The Physician enraged hereat talked treason against the State in all his discourses till the nimblenesse of his tongue forc'd the nimblenesse of his feet and he was fain to fly into Alsatia Here keeping company with the Gentry of the countrey he gave himself over to all licentiousnesse His body was the sea wherein the tide of drunkennesse was ever ebbing and flowing for by putting his finger in his throat he used to spew out his drink and drunkennesse together and from that instant date himself sober to return to his cups again Every moneth he had a new sute not for pride but necessity his apparel serving both for wearing and bedding and having given his clothes many vomits he gave them to the poore Being Codrus over night he would be Croesus in the morning flush of money as if he carried the invisible Indies in his pocket some suspected the devil was his pursebearer and that he carried a spirit in the pomel of his sword his constant companion whilest others maintain that by the heat of the furnace he could ripen any metall into gold All the diet he prescribed his patients was this to eat what and how often they thought fitting themselves and yet he did most strange cures Like the quicksilver he so much dealt with he would never be fixt in one place or live any where longer then a twelvemoneth for some observe that by that time the maladies reverted again which he formerly cured He gave so strong physick as summoned Nature with all her force to expell the present disease but the remnant dregs thereof afterwards reinforcing themselves did assault Nature tired out with the violence of her former task and easily subdued it His Scholars brag that the fragments of his learning would feast all the Philosophers in the world boasting that the gout the disgrace of Physick was the honour of Paracelsus who by curing it removed that scandall from his profession whereas others say he had little Learning and lesse Latine When any asked him the name of an herb he knew not he would tell them there was no use thereof in Physick and yet this man would undertake not onely to cure men but to cure the Art of curing men and reform Physick it self As for his religion it would as well pose himself as others to tell what it was He boasted that shortly he would order Luther and the Pope
preach and the Laity to live according to the ancient Canons Object not that it is unfitting he should lie Perdue who is to walk the round and that Governing as an higher employment is to silence his Preaching For Preaching is a principall part of Governing and Christ himself ruleth his Church by his Word Hereby Bishops shall govern hearts and make men yield unto them a true and willing obedience reverencing God in them Many in consumptions have recover'd their healths by returning to their native aire wherein they were born If Episcopacy be in any declination or diminution of honour the going back to the painfulnesse of the primitive Fathers in Preaching is the onely way to repair it Painfull pious and peaceable Ministers are his principall Favourites If he meets them in his way yea he will make it his way to meet them he bestoweth all grace and lustre upon them He is carefull that Church-censures be justly and solemnly inflicted namely 1 Admonition when the Church onely chideth but with the rod in her hand 2 Excommunication the Mittimus whereby the Malefactour is sent to the gaolour of hell and delivered to Satan 3 Aggravation whereby for his greater contempt he is removed out of the gaole into the dungeon 4 Penance which is or should be inward repentance made visible by open confession whereby the Congregation is satisfied for the publick offense given her 5 Absolution which fetcheth the penitent out of hell and opens the doore of heaven for him which Excommunication had formerly lock'd and Aggravation bolted against him As much as lies in his power he either prevents or corrects those too frequent abuses whereby offenders are not prick'd to the heart but let bloud in the purse and when the Court hath her costs the Church hath no damage given her nor any reparation for the open scandall she received by the parties offence Let the memory of Worthy Bishop Lake ever survive whose hand had the true seasoning of a Sermon with Law and Gospel and who was most fatherly grave in inflicting Church-censures Such offenders as were unhappy in deserving were happy in doing penance in his presence He is carefull and happy in suppressing of Heresies and Schismes He distinguisheth of Schismaticks as Phisicians do of Leprous people Some are infectious others not Some are active to seduce others others quietly enjoy their opinions in their own consciences The latter by his mildnesse he easily reduceth to the truth whereas the Chirurgeons rigourously handling it often breaks that bone quite off which formerly was but out of joynt Towards the former he useth more severity yet endeavouring first to inform him aright before he punisheth him To use force first before people are fairly taught the truth is to knock a nail into a board without wimbling a hole for it which then either not enters or turns crooked or splits the wood it pierceth He is very mercifull in punishing offenders both in matters of life and livelyhood seing in S. Johns Language the same word Bâ—os signifies both He had rather draw tears then bloud It was the honour of the Romane State as yet being Pagan In hoc gloriari licet nulli Gentium mitiores placuisse poenas Yea for the first seventy years till the reigne of Ancus Martius they were without a prison Clemency therefore in a Christian Bishop is most proper O let not the Starres of our Church be herein turn'd to Comets whose appearing in place of judicature presageth to some death or destruction I confesse that even Justice it self is a kind of mercy But God grant that my portion of mercy be not paid me in that coin And though the highest detestation of sinne best agreeth with Clergy-men yet ought they to cast a severe eye on the vice and example and a mercifull eye on the person None more forward to forgive a wrong done to himself Worthy Archbishop Whitgift interceded to Queen Elizabeth for remitting of heavie fines laid on some of his Adversaries learning from Christ his Master to be a mediatour for them till his importunity had angred the Queen yea and till his importunity had pleas'd her again and gave not over till he got them to be forgiven He is very carefull on whom he layeth hands in Ordination lest afterwards he hath just cause to beshrew his fingers and with Martianus a Bishop of Constantinople who made Sabbatius a Jew and a turbulent man Priest wish he had then rather laid his hand on the briers then such a mans head For the sufficiency of Scholarship he goeth by his own eye but for their honest life he is guided by other mens hands which would not so oft deceive him were Testimonialls a matter of lesse courtesie and more conscience For whosoever subscribes them enters into bond to God and the Church under an heavy forfeiture to avouch the honestie of the party commended and as Judah for Benjamin they become sureties for the young man unto his father Nor let them think to void the band and make it but a blank with that clause so farre forth as we know or words to the like effect For what saith the Apostle God is not mocked He meddleth as little as may be with Temporall matters having little skill in them and lesse will to them Not that he is unworthy to manage them but they unworthy to be managed by him Yea generally the most dexterous in spirituall matters are left-handed in temporall businesse and go but untowardly about them Wherefore our Bishop with reverend Andrews meddleth little in civill affairs being out of his profession and element Heaven is his vocation and therefore he counts earthly employments avocations except in such cases which lie as I may say in the Marches of Divinity and have connexion with his calling or else when temporall matters meddle with him so that he must rid them out of his way Yet he rather admireth then condemneth such of his brethren who are strengthned with that which would distract him making the concurrence of spirituall and temporall power in them support one another and using worldly businesse as their recreation to heavenly employment If call'd to the Court he there doth all good offices betwixt Prince and people striving to remove all misprisions disaffections advancing unity and concord They that think the Church may flourish when the Common-wealth doth wither may as well conceive that the brains may be sound when pia mater is perished When in the way of a Confessour he privately tells his Prince of his faults he knows by Nathans parable to go the nearest way home by going farre about He improves his power with his Prince for the Churches good in maintaining both true religion and the maintenance thereof lest some pretending with pious Ezechiah to beat down the brazen serpent the occasion of Idolatry do indeed with sacrilegious Ahaz take away the brazen bulls from
stand on his own legs rendring himself absolute without being beholden to the French King or any other Having wholly conquer'd Romania he cast his eyes on Hetruria and therein either wan to submission or compliance most of the cities an earnest of his future finall conquest had not the unexpected death of his father Pope Alexander prevented him This Alexander with his sonne Cesar Borgia intended to poyson some rich Cardinalls to which purpose a flagon of poysoned wine was prepared But through the errour of a servant not privy to the project the Pope himself and Borgia his sonne drank thereof which cost the former his life and the other a long languishing sicknesse This Cesar Borgia once bragg'd to Machiavill that he had so cunningly contrived his plots as to warrant himself against all events If his father should die first he had made himself master of such a way that by the strength of his party in the city of Rome and conclave of Cardinalls he could chuse what Pope he pleased so from him to get assurance of this province of Romania to make it hereditary to himself And if which was improbable Nature should crosse her hands so that he should die before his father yet even then he had chalked out such a course as would ensure his conquest to his posterity so that with this politick dilemma he thought himself able to dispute against heaven it self But what he afterwards complained of he never expected that at the same time wherein his father should die he himself should also lie desperately sick disenabled to prosecute his designes till one unexpected counterblast of Fortune ruffled yea blew away all his projects so curiously plaited Thus three aces chance often not to rub and Politicians think themselves to have stopp'd every small cranny when they have left a whole doore open for divine providence to undo all which they have done The Cardinalls proceed to the choice of a new Pope whilest Borgia lay sick abed much bemoaning himself for all others had they the command of all April showrs could not bestow on drop of pity upon him Pius the third was first chosen Pope answering his name being a devout man such black swans seldome swim in Tyber but the chair of Pestilence choked him within twenty six dayes and in his room Julius was chosen or rather his greatnesse chose himself a sworn enemy to Cesar Borgia who still lay under the Physicians hands and had no power to oppose the election or to strengthen his new-got Dukedome of Romania the state of his body was to be preferred before the body of his state and he lay striving to keep life not to make a Pope Yea the operation of this poyson made him vomit up the Dukedome of Romania which he had swallowed before and whilest he lay sick the States and cities therein recovered their own liberties formerly enjoyed Indeed this disease made Borgia lose his nails that he could never after scratch to do any mischief and being banished Italie he fled into Navarre where he was obscurely kill'd in a tumultuous insurrection He was a man master in the art of dissembling never looking the same way he rowed extremely lustfull never sparing to tread hen and chickens At the taking of Capua where he assisted the French he reserved fourty of the fairest Ladies to be abused by his own wantonnesse And the prodigality of his lust had long before his death made him bankrupt of all the moysture in his body if his Physicians had not dayly repaired the decayes therein He exactly knew the operations of all hot and cold poysons which would surprise nature on a sudden and which would weary it out with a long siege He could contract a hundred toads into one drop and cunningly infuse the same into any pleasant liquour as the Italians have poysoning at their fingers ends By a fig which restored Hezekiahs life he took away the lives of many In a word if he was not a practicall Atheist I know not who was If any desire to know more of his badnesse let them reade Machiavills Prince where Borgia is brought in as an instance of all vilany And though he deserves to be hiss'd out of Christendome who will open his mouth in the defence of Machiavills precepts yet some have dared to defend his person so that he in his Book shews not what Princes should be but what then they were intending that work not for a glasse for future Kings to dresse themselves by but onely therein to present the monstrous face of the Politicians of that Age. Sure he who is a devil in this book is a Saint in all the rest and those that knew him witnesse him to be of honest life and manners so that that which hath sharpned the pens of many against him is his giving so many cleanly wipes to the foul noses of the Pope and Italian Prelacy CHAP. 8. The Hypocrite BY Hypocrite we understand such a one as doth Isaiah 32.6 practise hypocrisie make a trade or work of dissembling For otherwise Hypocriseorum macula carere aut paucorum est aut nullorum The best of Gods children have a smack of hypocrisie An Hypocrite is himself both the archer and the mark in all actions shooting at his own praise or profit And therefore he doth all things that they may be seen What with others is held a principall point in Law is his main Maxime in Divinity To have good witnesse Even fasting it self is meat and drink to him whilest others behold it In the outside of religion he out-shines a sincere Christian. Guilt cups glitter more then those of massie gold which are seldome burnish'd Yea well may the Hypocrite afford gaudy facing who cares not for any lining brave it in the shop that hath nothing in the ware-house Nor is it a wonder if in outward service he out-strips Gods servants who out-doeth Gods command by will-worship giving God more then he requires though not what most he requires I mean his heart His vizard is commonly pluckt off in this world Sincerity is an entire thing in it self Hypocrisie consists of severall pieces cunningy closed together and sometimes the Hypocrite is smote as Ahab with an arrow 1. Kings 22.34 betwixt the joynts of his armour and so is mortally wounded in his reputation Now by these shrewd signes a dissembler is often discovered First heavie censuring of others for light faults secondly boasting of his own goodnesse thirdly the unequall beating of his pulse in matters of pietie hard strong and quick in publick actions weak soft and dull in private matters fourthly shrinking in persecution for painted faces cannot abide to come nigh the fire Yet sometimes he goes to the grave neither detected nor suspected If Masters in their art and living in peaceable times wherein pietie and prosperity do not fall out but agree well together Maud mother to King Henry the second being besieged
the Pope that these Antipodes were not subject to his jurisdiction which much incensed his Holinesse against that strange opinion We will branch the description of an Heretick into these three parts First he is one that formerly hath been of the true Church They went out from us but they were not of us These afterwards prove more offensive to the Church then very Pagans as the English-Irish descended anciently of English Parentage be it spoken with the more shame to them and sorrow to us turning wild become worse enemies to our Nation then the Native Irish themselves 2. Maintaining a Fundamentall errour Every scratch in the hand is not a stab to the heart nor doth every false opinion make a Heretick 3. With obstinacy Which is the dead flesh making the green wound of an errour fester into the old soare of an Heresie It matters not much what manner of person he hath If beautifull perchance the more attractive of feminine followers If deformed so that his body is as odde as his opinions he is the more properly entitled to the reputation of crooked Saint His naturall parts are quick and able Yet he that shall ride on a winged horse to tell him thereof shall but come too late to bring him stale news of what he knew too well before Learning is necessary in him if he trades in a criticall errour but if he onely broches dregs and deals in some dull sottish opinion a trovell will serve as well as a pencill to daub on such thick course colours Yea in some Heresies deep studying is so uselesse that the first thing they learn is to inveigh against all learning However some smattering in the originall tongues will do well On occasion he will let flie whole vollies of Greek and Hebrew words whereby he not onely amazeth his ignorant Auditours but also in conferences daunteth many of his opposers who though in all other learning farre his superiours may perchance be conscious of want of skill in those languages whilest the Heretick hereby gains credit to his cause and person His behaviour is seemingly very pious and devout How foul soever the postern and backdoore be the gate opening to the street is swept and garnished and his outside adorned with pretended austerity He is extremely proud and discontented with the times quarrelling that many beneath him in piety are above him in place This pride hath caused many men which otherwise might have been shining lights prove smoaking firebrands in the Church Having first hammered the heresie in himself he then falls to seducing of others so hard it is for one to have the itch and not to scratch Yea Babylon her self will alledge that for Sions sake she will not hold her peace The necessity of propogating the truth is errours plea to divulge her falshoods Men as naturally they desire to know so they desire what they know should be known If challenged to a private dispute his impudence bears him out He counts it the onely errour to confesse he hath erred His face is of brasse which may be said either ever or never to blush In disputing his Modus is sine modo and as if all figures even in Logick were magicall he neglects all forms of reasoning counting that the onely Syllogisme which is his conclusion He slights any Synod if condemning his opinions esteeming the decisions thereof no more then the forfeits in a barbers shop where a Gentlemans pleasure is all the obligation to pay and none are bound except they will bind themselves Sometimes he comes to be put to death for his obstinacy Indeed some charitable Divines have counted it inconsistent with the lenity of the Gospel which is to expect and endeavour the amendment of all to put any to death for their false opinions and we reade of S. Paul though the Papists paint him alwayes with a sword that he onely came with a rod. However the mildest Authours allow that the Magistrate may inflict capitall punishment on Hereticks in cases of 1. Sedition against the State wherein he lives And indeed such is the sympathy betwixt Church and Commonwealth that there are few Heresies except they be purely speculative and so I may say have heads without hands or any practicall influence but in time the violent maintainers of them may make a dangerous impression in the State 2. Blasphemy against God and those points of religion which are awfully to be believed For either of these our Heretick sometimes willingly undergoes death and then in the Calendar of his own conceit he canonizeth himself for a Saint yea a Martyr CHAP. 11. The rigid Donatists THe Donatists were so called from a double Donatus whereof the one planted the sect the other water'd it the devil by Gods permission gave the increase The elder Donatus being one of tolerable parts and intolerable pride rais'd a Schisme in Carthage against good Cecilian the Bishop there whom he loaded unjustly with many crimes which he was not able to prove and vexed with this disgrace he thought to right his credit by wronging religion and so began the heresie of Donatists His most dominative tenet was that the Church was perished from the face of the earth the reliques thereof onely remaining in his party I instance the rather on this Heresie because the reviving thereof is the new disease of our times One Vibius in Rome was so like unto Pompey ut permutato statu Pompeius in illo ille in Pompeio salutari possit Thus the Anabaptists of our dayes and such as are Anabaptistically inclin'd in all particulars resemble the old Donatists abating onely that difference which is necessarily required to make them alike The epithet of rigid I therefore do adde to seperate the Donatists from themselves who seperated themselves from all other Christians For there were two principall sides of them first the Rogatists from Rogatus their teacher to whom S. Augustine beareth witnesse that they had zeal but not according to knowledge These were pious people for their lives hating bloudy practices though erroneous in their doctrine The learned Fathers of that age count them part of the true Church and their brethren though they themselves disclaim'd any such brotherhood with other Christians Oh the sacred violence of such worthy mens charity in plucking those to them which thrust themselves away But there was another sort of Jesuited Donatists as I may say whom they called Circumcellions though as little reason can be given of their name as of their opinions whom we principally intend at this time Their number in short time grew not onely to be considerable but terrible their tenet was plausible and winning and that Faith is easily wrought which teacheth men to believe well of themselves From Numidia where they began they overspread Africa Spain France Italie and Rome it self We find not any in Brittain where Pelagianisme mightily reigned either
were infringed and they grinded with exactions against their Laws and Liberties But now Duke D'Alva coming amongst them he intended to cancell all their charters with his sword and to reduce them to absolute obedience And whereas every city was fenced not onely with severall walls but different locall liberties and municipall immunities he meant to lay all their priviledges levell and casting them into a flat to stretch a line of absolute command over them He accounted them a Nation rather stubborn then valiant and that not from stoutnesse of nature but want of correction through the long indulgence of their late Governours He secretly accused Margaret Dutchesse of Parma the last Governesse for too much gentlenesse towards them as if she meant to cure a gangren'd arm with a lenitive plaister affirmed that a Ladies hands were too soft to pluck up such thistles by the root Wherefore the said Dutchesse soon after D'Alva's arrivall counting it lesse shame to set then to be outshin'd petitioned to resigne her regencie and return'd into Italie To welcome the Duke at his entrance he was entertain'd with prodigies and monstrous births which hapned in sundry places as if Nature on set purpose mistook her mark and made her hand to swerve that she might shoot a warning-piece to these countreys and give them a watch-word of the future calamities they were to expect The Duke nothing moved hereat proceeds to effect his project and first sets up the Counsell of troubles consisting of twelve the Duke being the President And this Counsell was to order all things in an arbitrary way without any appeal from them Of these twelve some were strangers such as should not sympathize with the miseries of the countrey others were upstarts men of no bloud and therefore most bloudy who being themselves grown up in a day cared not how many they cut down in an houre And now rather to give some colour then any virtue to this new composition of counsellours foure Dutch Lords were mingled with them that the native Nobility might not seem wholly neglected Castles were built in every city to bridle the inhabitants and Garisons put into them New Bishops Seas erected in severall cities and the Inquisition brought into the countrey This Inquisition first invented against the Moores as a trappe to catch vermine was afterwards used as a snare to catch sheep yea they made it heresie for to be rich And though all these proceedings were contrary to the solemn oath King Philip had taken yet the Pope who onely keeps an Oath-office and takes power to dispence with mens consciences granted him a faculty to set him free from his promise Sure as some adventurous Physicians when they are posed with a mungrell disease drive it on set purpose into a fever that so knowing the kind of the maladie they may the better apply the cure So Duke D'Alva was minded by his cruell usage to force their discontents into open rebellion hoping the better to come to quench the fire when it blazed out then when it smok'd and smother'd And now to frighten the rest with a subtle train he seiseth on the Earls of Egmond and Horn. These counted themselves armed with innocencie and desert having performed most excellent service for the King of Spain But when subjects deserts are above their Princes requitall oftentimes they study not so much to pay their debts as to make away their creditours All these victories could not excuse them nor the laurel wreaths on their heads keep their necks from the ax and the rather because their eyes must first be closed up which would never have patiently beheld the enslaving of their countrey The French Embassadour was at their execution and wrote to his Master Charles the ninth King of France concerning the Earl of Egmond That he saw that head struck off in the Market-place of Brussels whose valour had twice made France to shake This Counsell of troubles having once tasted Noble bloud drank their belly-fulls afterwards Then descending to inferiour persons by apprehensions executions confiscations and banishments they raged on mens lives and states Such as upon the vain hope of pardon returned to their houses were apprehended and executed by fire water gibbets and the sword and other kinds of deaths and torments yea the bodyes of the dead on whom the earth as their common mother bestowed a grave for a childs portion were cast out of their tombes by the Dukes command whose cruelty outstunk the noysomnesse of their carcases And lest the maintaining of Garisons might be burdensome to the King his Master he laid heavy impositions on the people the Duke affirming that these countreys were fat enough to be stewed in their own liquour that the Souldiers here might be maintained by the profits arising hence yea he boasted that he had found the mines of Peru in the Low-countreys though the digging of them out never quitted the cost He demanded the hundredth peny of all their moveable and immoveable goods and besides that the tenth peny of their moveable goods that should be bought and sold with the twentieth peny of their immoveable goods without any mention of any time how long those taxes and exactions should continue The States protested against the injustice hereof alledging that all trading would be press'd to death under the weight of this taxation weaving of stuffs their staple trade would soon decay and their shuttles would be very slow having so heavy a clog hanging on them yea hereby the same commodity must pay a new tole at every passage into a new trade This would dishearten all industry and make lazinesse and painfulnesse both of a rate when beggery was the reward of both by reason of this heavy imposition which made men pay dear for the sweat of their own brows And yet the weight did not grieve them so much as the hand which laid it on being impos'd by a forein power against their ancient priviledge Hereupon many Netherlanders finding their own countrey too hot because of intolerable taxes sought out a more temperate climate and fled over into England As for such as stayed behind their hearts being brimfull before with discontents now ran over 'T is plain these warres had their originall not out of the Church but the State-house Liberty was true doctrine to Papist and Protestant Jew and Christian. It is probable that in Noahs Ark the wolf agreed with the lambe and that all creatures drowned their antipathy whilest all were in danger of drowning Thus all severall religions made up one Commonwealth to oppose the Spaniard and they thought it high time for the Cow to find her horns when others not content to milk her went about to cut off her bag It was a rare happinesse that so many should meet in one chief William of Nassaw Prince of Orange whom they chose their Governour Yea he met their affections more then halfway in his loving behaviour so that Alva's cruelty did not