in these Courses but the Prince of Conde that was next to him in the Royal Blood declared for the Edicts Many great Lawyers were of opinion That the Regents Power was not so vast as to suspend or break the Edict and that therefore the People might follow any Person much more the next Prince of the Blood in defence of it This Plea was yet stronger before the Year ended for the King of Navarre being killed the Prince of Conde was then by the Law of France the Rightful Regent So that all the Wars that followed afterwards till the Year 1570 had this to be said for them That in the Opinion of very Learned Men the King was all that while under Age that the Edicts were broken the Kingdom governed by a Woman and Foreigners against Law and that the lawful Regent was excluded from the Government which made King Iames whose Judgment is not to be suspected in this Case always justify the Protestants in France and excuse them from Rebellion This is a piece of History little understood and generally made use of to blemish the Reformation therefore I thought it necessary to introduce the following Relation with this just account of these Wars that were the pretended grounds with which the House of Guise covered their own Ambition and hatred of the Family of Burbon After France had suffered all the Miseries which a course of Civil Wars for ten years together carries after it the King was advised to set on foot a Treaty of Peace not so much out of a design to quiet Matters by a happy settlement as to ensnare the Protestants into some fatal Trap in which they being catched might be safely and easily destroyed The chief Authors of this advice were the Queen Mother the Cardinal of Lorrain the Duke of Nevers the Count of Rets and Birague the last three were Italians and so better fitted both for designing and carrying on so wicked a Council to which the Duke of Anjou afterwards Henry the third was also admitted They said the extirpation of Heresy might be done much cheaper than by a Civil War It was fit first to grant the Protestants what conditions they desired then to treat them with all possible kindness by which their Jealousies were to be once extinguished and a confidence being begotten in them then to draw the chief Heads of the Party to Court upon some specious Attractive and there they were sure of them The first Bait to be offered was the marriage of the King's Sister to the King of Navarre and if that succeded not they were to invent still a new one till they found that which would do the Business All the danger of this Council was that the Pope and the King of Spain would be much provok'd by it and there might be some hazard of Tumults among the zealous People of France if the King seemed to favour the Hereticks too much But they reckoned that when the Design took effect all who might be discontented with the appearance of favour shewed to them would be well satisfied and the more the Pope and Spaniard complained of it it would advance their chief end of creating a confidence in the Protestants more effectually Thus were their Councils laid The Room in which this was first projected was the Council-Chamber of Blois where 16 Years after the Duke of Guise was killed by Henry the third's orders And it was more fully concluded in that Chamber at St. Clou where the same Henry the third was murdered by a Dominican The Design being agreed on the Queen-Mother made some of her Spies among the Protestants assure them that she hated the King of Spain mortally both on her Daughter's account that was his Queen and as was universally believed had been poysoned by his Orders as also upon the consideration of her own Family of Florence to which the Spaniard was then an uneasy Neighbour and designed to take the Territory of Siena out of their Hands It was reasonable enough to believe that upon such Motives a Woman of her temper would set on a War with Spain The King did also express a great inclination to the same War and to undertake the Protection of the Netherlands which were then under the Tyranny of the Duke of Alva's Government This wanted not a fair pretence Flanders having been formerly subject to the Crown of France He also seemed weary of the greatness of the Duke of Guise and his party which a Civil War did still encrease The King and the Queen-Mother employed also in these Messages Biron Momorancy Cosse and others who were Men of great Integrity and had much Friendship for the Queen of Navarre and the Admiral that were the Heads of the Protestant Party The Queen of Navarre was sensible of the great advantages her Son would receive from such an Alliance An Army was also promised her for the recovery of her Kingdom from the Spaniards which had been easily regained if the Crown of France had assisted her since the Southern Parts of France were almost all Protestants who would have wâ—…llingly served her against Spain Only she being a most Religious Woman had great apprehensions of the unlawfulness at least the extream danger of matching her Son to one of a different Religion therefore she took some time to consider of that part of the Proposition The Admiral was very weary of the Civil War it both ruined his Country and slackened the discipline of War which he had formerly observed with a Roman Severity He thought the Conquest of the Netherlands would be an easy and a great accession to the Crown he knew there was none so likely to be employed in it as himself and he was resolved to carry all the Souldiers of the Religion with him And being Admiral he also designed to raise the greatness of the Crown both at Sea and in the new-found World which was then sending over an incredible deal of Wealth to Spain in which the Spaniards who had landed in Florida and killed a Colony of the French that was setled there had given just cause to make War upon them Therefore as he had often expressed his being so averse to a Civil War that he could no longer look on and see the Miseries it brought on his Country so he was made believe the King did in good earnest intend to assist the Flemings which being both against the Spaniard and in defence of those of the same Religion he would by no means hinder Upon these Considerations there was a Peace concluded between the King and the Protestants by which the free exercise of their Religion was granted some Cautionary Towns were also put in their Hands to be kept by them two Years till there were a full settlement made of the Edicts and the other things agreed to for their Security The King acted his part with all the Artifice possible he became much kinder to the Family of Momorancy and the rest of the Admirals Friends and
a Sentence good or does not think it expedient that is to say They will do it whensoever they find a Prince who will execute the Sentence and yet by that Conquest not grow so strong as by that means to turn the Ballance So the two Considerations to which we owe our Security are the want of Force and the Fear of another Prince his becoming too powerful by the Conquest But I must add that Bellarmine while he was a Jesuite had taught that Heretical Princes were not to be deposed except they endeavoured to turn their people from the Faith This was all his Bounty to them of which we could not pretend to a Crumb since there were such Laws made against Popery among us Yet when he became a Cardinal he considered better of the Matter so that in his Recognitions he retracts that and says therein be followed Durandus his Opinion who maintains it against Aquinas but he thinks the latter was in the right and says Even in that Case they may be deposed only the Church does it not always either because she wants Strength or does not judge it expedient But he concludes If Princes endeavour to draw their Subjects from the Faith they may and ought to be deposed So in our Case there is no Mercy to be expected unless we repeal all Laws against that Religion But after all this there is another Device in the Canon-Law called Ipso facto by which a Sentence is incurred immediately upon the doing of a Fact This began in the Priviledges granted to Monasteries or Churches in most of which this Clause is to be found That if any King or Prince c. did any thing contrary to these Priviledges he thereby fell from his Power and Dignity Now that Heresy is one of the things upon which a Prince is ipso facto under Excommunication and Deposition we have the Authority of Father Parsons or Creswel who tells us That the whole School of Divines and Canonists agree in it and That it is certain and of Faith That a Prince falling from the Catholick Religion and endeavouring to draw away others from it does immediately fall from all his Power and Dignity even before the Pope has pronounced any Sentence and that his Subjects are free from their Oaths of Obedience and may eject such an one as Apostate and Heretick But there is a clearer Evidence for this the great and famous College of the Sorbon seventy Doctors being present when consulted whether the People of France were not freed from their Obedience to Henry the third upon his putting the Duke and Cardinal of Guise to death they before ever the Pope had given Sentence declared That they were absolved from their Obedience and might with a good Conscience make War upon him for the defence of the Catholick Faith Upon which the Parisians wrote to the Pope to desire the Confirmation of that Decision From all which it appears that if the deposing Power be in the Pope the King is not a whit the safer because we know nothing of any such Sentence pronounced against him And thus having made good and illustrated the Positions I laid down against all the Exceptions which that small and condemned Party of Widdrirgton's Followers make use of to cover themselves from the Charge of Treason that lies against their Church I go next to lay open the Evidence after which I shall leave it to every Man's Conscience to pass the Verdict There are in f Pope Gregory the Great 's Works four Priviledges granted one to the Abbey of St. Medard another to the Hospital a third to the Nunnery a fourth to St. Martin's Church of Autim In which after the Priviledges are granted a Sanction is added in these words If any Kings c. shall endeavour to countervene this Writing let him lose the Dignity of his Power and Honour Or shorter in that of St. Medard Let him be deprived of his Dignity These are to be found both in all the MSS and Printed Editions of that Popes Works It is true the first of these to Saint Medard's Monastery is looked on as a forged Piece both by Cardinal Perron Sirmond and Lannoy But as it went for a true one till of late and is still defended by others Baronius in particular concluding from thence for the Popes Power over Kings so the other Priviledges are not denied to be true by any except Lannoy of late for ought I know These have been for above 600 years looked on as the Grants of that Pope But this may seem a private Writing and not of such force About 130 years after that Pope Gregory the 3d deposed Leo the Emperor from all his Dominions in Italy because he would not tolerate the Worship of I mages And if that single Heresie merited such a Sentence what may we look for among whose many imputed Errors this is but one and none of the most considerable Not many years after that did his Successor Zacharias upon a Message he received from France absolve that Nation from their Oaths to Childeric and ordered Boniface to Crown Pepin in his stead And not long after that Pope Adrian gave the Empire of Rome and of the West to Charles the Great As Bellarmine proves from above 30 of the Historians of that time and the Testimony of many Soveraign Princes Yet these being dark Ages in which there was more of Action than Dispute we do not find the Grounds laid down on which those Proceedings were founded But the constant Maxim of the Papacy was once to begin a Practice and then to find Arguments to defend it among which the Practice it self was no inconsiderable one for he was a mean spirited Pope that would in a Tittle fall short of what his Predecessors had assumed About 250 years after Charles the Great had assumed the Empire of the West there arose a Pope Gregory the Seventh that resolved to make the most of his See that could be and reckoning That the Empire of the West was the Gift of his Predecessors and building on that known Maxim That none can give that which they have not he looked on the supreme Dominion of it as one of the Perquisites of the See which he would by no means part with And therefore in his Dictatis in which he asserts the several Branches of his Prerogative these be three of them That the Pope only may use the Imperial Ensigns That he may depose Emperours And That he can absolve Subjects from their Fidelity to wicked Princes And to shew he was in earnest in these Doctrines he began soon to lay about him His first Threatnings were against King Philip of France who was a vicious Prince In a Letter to the Bishops of France he requires them to admonish the King for his Faults and if he did not mend them to put the whole Kingdom under an Interdict And if after all that he continued still Disobedient he Swaggers out in
have felt such signal marks of his Royal Clemency that they can have no colour to complain except it be because they cannot bear any Office in the Nation For what Noise soever they make of the severe Laws yet in force both against the Clergy and Laity of their Religion they cannot pretend that since his Majesties happy Restauration any Priest has died or any Family has been ruined for their Religion But I confess it is enough according to the Doctrine of their Church to discharge them of their Allegiance That the King is a favourer of Heresy and if upon this Reason they will still Plot and Conspire against his Person and Government we have no reason to wonder at it for they act according to their Principles Nor have these Islands been the only Scenes in which those Principles have produced such dismal Effects If we look abroad and reflect on what was done in France we shall find they have had the same Operation there I need not mention that perfidious and cruel Massacre that as Thuanus tells us was so much extolled in Rome and Spain and of which the Pope has a Memorial kept in the Hangings at the entrance of his Chappel to this day The Barricadoes of Paris the design of Deposing Henry the 3d only because he had made Peâ—…ce with the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde the whole progress of the holy League their taking Arms against that King when the Duke and Cardinal of Guise were killed by his Orders and at last his being stabbed by Clement a Dominican Friar are Instances beyond exception The prosecution of the Rebellion against Henry the 4th the attempt made upon his Person by Iohn Chastel which was more successful in Ravilliack's hands shew sufficiently That a Princes turning from that which they call Heresie over to their Church does not secure him unless he will extirpate Hereticks For tho Henry the 4th changed his Religion yet the favour he shewed the Protestants in the Edict of Nantes was a thing never to be forgiven These things were set on and encouraged from Rome and pleaded for by their Writers That the holy League was authorized from Rome that Sixtus the 5th by his Bulls declared the King of Navar incapable of the Succession that he intended to have Deposed Henry the 3d and that he rejoyced at his death and magnified the Fact preferring it to Eleazar's killing the Elephant and Iudeth's killing Hollofernes and ascribed it to a singular Providence and Disposition of the Almighty called it a great Miracle and appeared vain that a Friar had done it having been one himself tho no doubt he had liked it better if Clement had been of his own sute and would have had himself thought a Prophet for foretelling it and so he might well do perhaps and in the end concluded That unfortunate Kings favouring Hereticks to be the unpardonable Sin against the Holy Ghost These were all so publickly done that it were a needless labour to go about the proving them Francis Veronne wrote a Book to justify both the Facts of Clement the Dominican and Chastel as well he might from the Principles of their Church After all these dismal Facts was it not time for the States of France to think of some effectual Remedy to prevent the like for the future And they judged aright that without Condemning the Deposing Power it could not be done To which as was already hinted the Clergy made such vigorous Opposition that it came to nothing If these things had flowed only from the heat of some violent Spirits the danger were not so great but it is the Doctrine of their Church so Lessius under the name of Singletonus says That if the power of Deposing lies not in the Pope the Church must of necessity Err which has taught it and to assert that is Heretical and a more intollerable Error than any about the Sacrament can be And Becanus Confessor to Ferdinand the 2d says No Man doubts but if Princes are Contumacious the Pope may order their Lives to be taken away What security then can there be found out from Persons who give up their Consciences to the conduct of Men of such Principles and profess an Implicite Obedience and belief of all that their Church teaches and commands which possesses all its Votaries with such cursed rage against Hereticks that not content to adjudg them to eternal Flames in another Life they must needs Persecute and Burn without Mercy where they have the Power in their Hands and Plot and Conspire Kill and Massacre without relenting where they have not Power to do it with any colour of Law Men of Honour will not be easily drawn in to such Practices But in Conclusion when a fit Opportunity appears they must either forsake their Church or concur in the most mischievous Designs that the Masters of their Consciences will draw them into which I pray God make them see in good time before they are Involved in such Snares that Repentance will come too late to do them good or to preserve the Nation from those Miseries that they will bring upon it FINIS THE Unreasonableness AND IMPIETY OF POPERY IN A SECOND LETTER Written upon the Discovery of the Late PLOT Imprimatur C. Alston Nov. 12. 1678. LONDON Printed for R. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1678. The Unreasonableness and Impiety OF POPERY In a Second Letter written upon the Discovery of the Late PLOT SIR YOu are pleased to tell me that my last Letter has had some good effect and that many who were before carried away with the false colours of the Romish Religion are now a little awakned and seem not unwilling to examin things which they took formerly upon trust and therefore you desire me since you are not Master of so much spare time your self to set down the most material and convincing reasons and in as few words as may be that are most likely to open the eyes of honest and simple persons that have been hitherto misled and are now willing to be instructed In all such cases I first consider the temper of the persons to be dealt with Such as take up their Religion out of interest or humour and think it point of honour to continue in it and so will examine nothing are not to be spoken to Others that are naturally superstitious and credulous are very hard to be wrought on for they believe every thing that is said on the one hand and distrust all that is told them by any body else Some of those have a vanity in coming to talk with Divines but it is an endless labour to deal with them for at every time one must begin of new But the only persons to be dealt with are those that are sincere and inquisitive that having been bred in that Religion or brought over to it by some specious pretences are now willing to hear reason and resolved to follow it
that they will not be the Instruments of their Cruelty that they shall lose their Kingdoms or Dominions is known to all that have read the Decrees of the 4th Council in the Lateran The violation of Publick Faith was also decreed by another of their General Councils at Constance in which notwithstanding the safe conduct that Sigismund had granted to Iohn Husse and Ierome of Prague care was not only taken that they should be burnt but they made it a standing Rule for the time to come That tho Hereticks came to the place of Judgment trusting to their safe conduct and would not have come without it yet the Prince who granted it was under no Obligation by it but the Church might proceed to Censures and Punishment By these Decrees Cruelty and Treachery are become a part of their Doctrine and they may join them to their Creed upon as good Reasons as they can shew for many of their other Additions The Nature of Man is not yet sunk so low as easily to hear these things without horror therefore it is fit they should be kept among the Secrets of their Religion till a fit opportunity appear in which they may serve a turn and then we need not doubt but they will be made use of If any will be so charitable to their Church as not easily to believe this the History of the Parisian Massacre may satisfie them to the full which Thuanus says was a Pitch of Barbarity beyond any thing that former Ages had ever seen And if the Irish Massacre flowing from the same Spirit and the same Principles had not gone beyond it we might have reasonably concluded that it could never be matched again But we may be taught from such Precedents what we ought to expect when ever we are at the mercy of Persons of that Religion who if they be true Sons of the Church of Rome must renounce both Faith and Mercy to all Hereticks I shall give the Relation of this Massacre from that celebrated late Writer of the French History Mr. de Mezeray only adding some Passages out of Thuanus Davila and others where he is defective But I shall premise a short representation of the Civil Wars of France which are made use of as the Arguments for justifying that Cruelty and by which they do still blemish the Protestant Religion as teaching Rebellion against Princes During the Reign of Francis the 1st and Henry the 2d the Protestant Religion got great footing in France the usual severities of the Church of Rome were then employed to extirpate it yet tho their Numbers were very great and the Persecution most severe they made no resistance But upon the death of Henry the 2d Catherine de Medici the Queen Mother with the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise took the Government in their Hands pretending that the King Francis the 2d was of Age being then sixteen The Princes of the Blood on the other hand alleadged That the Kingdom ought to be under a Regency till the King was at least 22 Years of Age Since Charles the 6th had been admitted at that Age to the Government as a particular mark of their esteem of him So that tho the Age of Majority was at 25 Years and that was a singular exception from a general Rule yet at furthest it shewed that the King could not assume the Government before he was two and twenty It was also an undoubted Right of the Princes of the Blood to hold the Regency during the Minority of their Kings and to administer it by the Direction of the Parliaments and the Assembly of the States Upon these Points many things were written on both sides The Princes of the Blood pretended they were excluded from the Government against Law and upon that were projecting how to possess themselves of the Power which with the Person of the King were violently kept from them But the Prince of Conde being advised to it by Coligny then Admiral of France did also declare for mitigating the Severities against the Protestants This being the Case that the Point was truly disputable no Man can blame the Protestants for joining with their Friends against their Enemies And yet this Plot was driven no further than an endeavour to take the King out of the Hands of his Mother and the Brothers of Lorrain who were all Foreigners The chief Promoter of it was a Papist Renaudy and it was discovered by Avennelles who tho he was most firm to his Religion being a Protestant yet having an aversion to all Plots revealed it out of scruple of Conscience Soon after this Discovery Francis the 2d died and his Brother that succeded him Charles the 9th was without dispute under Age he not being then full eleven years old And according to the resolution of many great Lawyers in the case of his Brother the Kingdom ought to have been under a Regency during all the Wars that preceded the Massacre for he was then but two and twenty At first it was agreed to that the King of Navarre as the first Prince of the Blood ought to be Regent but he being wrought on by the Queen Mother and her Party and drawn over to them the Lawyers were again set to examine How far the Power of the Regent did extend Many published their Opinions That the other Princes of the Blood ought to have their share in the Regency and that the Regents might be checkt by the Courts of Parliaments and were subject to an Assembly of the States The chief Point of State then under Consideration was What way to proceed with the Protestants whose Numbers grew daily and were now more considerable having such powerful Heads A severe Edict came out against them in Iuly 1561 condemning all Meetings for Religious Worship except those that were celebrated with the Rites of the Church of Rome banishing all the Protestant Ministers and appointing the Bishops to proceed against Hereticks with this only mitigation of former Cruelties That Banishment should be the highest Punishment But the Nation could not bear the Execution of this So next Ianuary there was a great Assembly called of the Princes of the Blood the Privy Counsellors and eight Courts of Parliament in which the Edict that carried the name of the Month was passed By it the free exercise of that Religion was tolerated and the Magistrates were required to punish all who should hinder or interrupt it Not long after that the Duke of Guise did disturb a Meeting of Protestants at Vassy as he was on his Journey to Paris his Servants began with reproachful words and from these they went to blows It ended in a throwing of Stones one of which hurt the Duke but that was severely revenged about 60 were killed and 200 wounded no Age or Sex being spared Upon this he encouraged the violation of the Edict every where so that it was universally broken The King of Navarre joined with him
and Cruelty met together in such a manner before this execrable day At Court all those generous Impressions which follow noble Blood seemed extinguished Men threw off Humanity and Women had neither compassion nor modesty The Queen-Mother and her Ladies took pleasure to look upon the most detestable Objects and greedily beheld some obscene and indecent sights but it is not fit to write all that was then done About nine of the Clock the King sent for the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde and told them he was forced to use that severe Remedy to put an end to War and Rebellion and had therefore destroyed those whom he could not induce to obey And for them tho he had good reason to hate them mortally since they had led on a Rebellion against him yet in consideration of their Blood and Alliance he was resolved to spare them if they would change their Religion otherwise they must look for no better usage than their Servants had met with The King spake this with great rage so that the King of Navarre being terrified said That if the King would save their lives and leave them their Consciences free they should in all other things be commanded by him But the Prince of Conde answered more boldly That he might dispose of his Life and Estate as he pleased but for his Religion he owed an account of it to God alone from whom he had received the knowledg of it This resolute Answer put the King in such a rage that after he had treated him with most abusive language he swore That if he did not change within three days he should hang for it And so ordered them to be strictly guarded At the same time there were Expresses dispatched over all France to set on the People both in the Towns and Country to imitate the example of the Parisians and destroy the Hereticks Yet the King either out of some remorse or shame wrote to his Ambassadours and the Governours of the Provinces that same day That the Duke of Guise and others that adhered him having a great interest in the City of Paris and apprehending that the Admirals Friends were resolved to revenge his Wound had therefore both to secure themselves and to prosecute their former Quarrels raised the City of Paris and had broke through the Guards set to defend the Admiral and killed him and many other Persons of Quality the rage of the People being such that the King's Guards could do nothing to repress it Therefore he was forced to keep himself within the Louvre but had as soon as was possible quieted the Town so that all things were put in order again and he was resolved still to maintain his Edict made for the free Exercise of their Religion Veremundus has printed the Copies of the Letters directed to the Governours of Burgundy and Tourain and to the Town of Bourges with the Memorial sent to the Swiss Cantons all to the same purpose bearing date the 24th of August And in another Letter the King wrote That he had made up a new agreement with the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde and was resolved to run the same hazard with them for revenging the death of his Cousin the late Admiral But the House of Guise would not bear this and made the King own that all was done by his express Orders So on the 26th of August the King went to the Court of Parliament and after an invidious repetition of all the Troubles of his Reign which yet he said he intended to have quieted by the late Treaty of Peace he discovered that the Admiral had conspired to kill him his Brothers and the King of Navarre and to set up the young Prince of Conde whom he also designed afterwards to kill that so the whole Royal Family being destroyed he might make himself King and since extream Diseases required extream Remedies he was forced to do what he had done and concluded that all was done by his express Order and Command Thuanus the Father tho he abhorred the thing yet out of fear and compliance made a base flattering Speech of the necessity of dissimulation in Princes and did much commend that saying of Lewis the 11th He who knows not how to Dissemble knows not how to Reign And Pibrac the Attourney General moved the King that the Declaration he had made might be entred in their Registers and that strict Orders might be given to put an end to the Blood and Confusion with which the City was filled Both which the King ordered to be done The Declaration which was thereupon published on the 28th is printed by Veremundus By it the King charged all Persons under pain of Death through the whole Kingdom to do no injury to the Protestants And at the same time declared it Capital for the Protestants to have any Assemblies This was believed to be done rather on design to destroy than save the Hugonets That they being out of apprehension of danger might stay all at Home and so be more easily Massacred On the 28th of August a Jubilee was granted to all who had been in this Butchery and they were commanded to go every where to Church and bless God for the success of that Action So little relenting had they after all these black Crimes that they imagined they had done God good service And to that height did their Impudence rise that they presumed to address to that Merciful Being who abhors cruel and blood-thirsty Men and that with hands not only defiled with Blood but boasting of it as a Sacrifice offered to God which had been a fitter Oblation to him that was a Lyar and a Murderer from the beginning than the God of Truth and Father of Mercies One remarkable Passage fell out which occasioned much Discourse and was variously constructed by the several Parties On the day of the Massacre about Noon a white Thorn in the Church-yard of the Innocents that was almost dead and had no Leaves on it flourished all of a sudden This was published through the Streets of Paris as a Sign that Heaven approved their actions and was made use of to animate them to new heats in their Cruelty For every one was set on to kill one or other that he might be honoured with the sight of so unusual a thing Some thought it might come from the nature of the Tree and it was said such things were not extraordinary in Trees of that kind a little before they became quite dead Others believed it might be the Trick of some Monk who pouring either hot Water or some prepared Water at the Root of it might have done the feat But the Rable did universally ascribe it to some miraculous Cause only they differed about that to which it referred The Protestants said it signified their Innocence and that a new Troop of Innocents were sent to Heaven and therefore the Tree in the Church-yard of the Innocents flourished afresh The Papists said is
of Quality Cavagnes and Briquemaut who had been dealt with to accuse the Admiral but they would not save themselves by so base a ransom so they were both condemned as Complices with him But when the Sentence was pronounced against them Thuanus that was an Eye-Witness says Briquemaut cried out when that part of the Judgment was read that concerned his Children Ah Innocents what have they done And then he who for 50 years together had served in the Warrs with a high and approved Valour being then 70 what for fear of Death what out of pity to his Children would have done any thing to have saved himself He sent the King word first that he would put Rochel in his Hands if he would spare his Life But that being rejected he offered to accuse the Admiral to preserve himself But neither was that considered All that while his Fellow-Sufferer Cavagnes continued most serious in his Devotions and for three hours together was either Praying or reciting some Psalms and expressed no concern for his Life his thoughts being wholly employed about Eternity He encouraged Briquemaut to die as he had lived and to turn himself to God and not to stain so honourable a Life as he had led with an ignominious end And he seeing he must die recollected his Thoughts and seemed ashamed of his former abject behaviour and composed and prepared himself for Death They both were carried to the place of Execution in Hurdles where they not only suffered the reptoches of the Multitude as they went along who threw Filth and Clay at them with their most scurrilous Language but Death it self with much Christian Patience and Magnanimity They were hanged at the Greve and their Bodies after they were dead were barbarously mangled by the cruel Multitude With them the brave Admiral was hanged in Effigie whose Innocence as well as their own they did to their last Breath assert The King who delighted in such bloody Spectacles did not only look on himself with the Queen-Mother and the Court but forced the King of Navarre likewise to be a Witness of it It is needless to say much for evincing the Admiral 's Innocence for all the Writers of the time acknowledg the Process was only to cover the infamy of the Massacre And Thuanus has so fully demonstrated it that none can so much as doubt of it If the Admiral had any such design why came he to Court Why to Paris where he knew he had few Friends and a vast number of mortal Enemies and why did he desire a Guard from the King But since they could not find a better colour for so foul a Business they must make use of the best they had They took another course to stop the Queen of Englands resentments who besides the common Cause of Religion had a particular esteem for the Admiral for they shewed a Memorial which he had given the King to perswade the War of Flanders to Walsingham the ever renowned Secretary of State then her Ambassador in France In which one of the reasons was That if the King would not receive these oppressed Provinces into his Protection they would throw themselves into the Queen of Englands Hands and if the English made themselves Masters of them or of any considerable Ports in them they would be again uneasy and formidable Neighbours to France which would thereby lose the great security they had in taking Calice out of their Hands When Walsingham read this and was asked what he thought of the Admirals Friendship to his Mistress he answered as became so great a Man That he could not say much of his Friendship to the Q. of England but he was sure it appeared from that what a faithful Subject he was to the King of France A Week after this was done the King compleated the Treachery of this Precedure for by his Letters directed to the Governours of the Provinces bearing date the 3d of November He declared he would Tollerate no Religion but the Roman Catholick in all his Dominions Upon which the following Civil Wars began and in excuse of them I shall only say that besides the barbarous and persidious Treatment the Protestants had now received they had this legal Warrant for standing on their own defence That by the former Treaty the King granted them Cautionary Towns for Pledges of the observation of the Edict And it is certain that if a Prince grants his Subjects Cautionary Towns for their Security he does thereby relax their Alleagiance to him and gives them a right to defend themselves if the Agreement upon which these Pledges were given should come to be broken This is the true and just account of that foul and treacherous Massacre even as it is represented by the Historians of that Age and Church who can neither deny nor excuse the Infamy of it tho some rejoyced at it and others wrote in defence of it The King gloried so much in it that three Meddals were struck to perpetuate the memory of it In one Hercules is both with his Club and a Flambeau fighting against the seven-headed Serpent with this Motto Ne ferrum temnat simul ignis obsto On the reverse the King with his Hand supports two Crowned Pillars ready to fall with this Motto Mira fides lapsas relevat manus una Columnas Hereby intimating that Heresy was the Serpent which was to be destroyed by main Force and by Fire And that by this Act the King had supported Religion and Justice In the second the King sits in his Chair of State with a Sword in his right Hand and an Hand on the Head of a Scepter in his left And many Heads lying about his Feet with this Motto Virtus in Rebelles On the Reverse were the Arms of France between two Pillars and two Lawrel Branches with this Motto Virtus excitavit Iustitiam The third had on the one side a Woman environed with Rays and a Book open in one Hand and a Palmin the other and at her Feet many Heads in Flames with this Motto Subducendis rationibus The Reverse was the same with the first The Signification of this was Religion triumphing over Heresy But this was only a false shew of Joy for he was ininvardly tormented with the horrours of a guilty Conscience which the effusion of so much Blood did justly raise in him so that being often troubled with Visions he was frequently heard say Ah! my poor Subjects what had you done But I was forced to it The strange manner of his Death looked like a signal Judgment from Heaven for that bloody day for after a long Sickness which was believed the effect of a lent Poison given him by the Queen-Mother Blood not only came out through all the Conduits of his Body but through the very Pores so that he was sometimes found all bathed in his own Blood And he that had made his Kingdom swim with Blood died thus wallowing in his own All the servile Pens of the Lawyers
is certain that the Design of Revealed Religion was to give men clearer Notions of these Moral perfections to press them by stronger Arguments and encourage our Endeavours by suitable Rewards and punishments So that if any Religion contradict these Moral Duties we are sure it is false for the Revelation of God's will must be designed to make us better than we would otherwise be following barely the Light of Nature and not worse If then the Church of Rome over-throws Morality and contradicts any of the Ten Commandments we are sure it is not of God And how far it has done this they may judge by these Particulars First Whatever Church offers cheap and easie pardons for sin does take off so much from our sense of the evil of sin We cannot have a very ill opinion of any thing that is easily forgiven Now what are the Popes Pardons Indulgences Jubilees Priviledged Altars the going of Pilgrimages the saying of some Collects the wearing of Agnus Dei's Peebles or other such like trash but so many Engines to root out of mens minds any deep horrour or great sense of sin Is not this the very thing which the People of the Iews of old offered at to bring Thousands of Rams Ten Thousand Rivers of Oyl their First born or the fruit of their Body to offer for their sins All which were rejected in the name of God in these words I will shew thee O man what is good and what our Lord requireth of thee Verily to do Iudgment and to love mercy and to walk solicitous with thy God This is a Moral matter and unchangable therefore whoever go to beat down the sense of sin by the offer of Pardon on any other terms but the sincere change of a mans life destroy Morallity which is the Image of God in man If from this general Consideration we descend to Examine the Commandments in particular we shall find matter enough for a severe Charge against their Church Is not the First Commandment broken when Devotions are offered to Saints which Import their being Omniscient Omnipresent and Almighty that are the Incommunicable Attributes of the God-head and when pardon of sin preservation Grace against Temptations and Eternal life are immediately begged from Saints It is true they say the sence of these prayers is only that we desire their assistance at Gods hands for these blessings But the words of their Offices import no such matter And though for above One Hundred and Sixty Years these things have been complained of and in the Correction of their Offices some of them were cast out yet many of them do still continue In which the plain sence of the words of their Offices is Idolatrous Only they make a shift with another and forced sence put on them to defend themselves from that charge And for such Devotions they can shew no Warrant for the first Thousand years after Christ. The Second Commandment is so openly and confessedly broken by them that many of them maintain it does not all oblige Christians but belonged only to the Jewish Dispensation And in all their Catechisms it is left out which was done very wisely with what honesty let them answer for it was not fit the people should look on that as a Commandment which they saw so notoriously broken throughout their whole Church A great trade being also driven by the breach of it That this was not in the Primitive Church themselves confess all the Books the Fathers wrote against the Idolatry of the Heathens demonstrate this Nor were Images so much as set up in Churches before the Sixth Century And then care was taken that they should not be worshipped and not before the Eighth Century were they worshipped in any place of the Christian Church The Doctrine of the Popes power of Relaxing of Oaths and discharging men from the Obligation of them joyned with the practice of their Popes for above 800 years is as formal an Opposition to the Third Commandment as can be Imagined This was also begun in the Eighth Century The vast multiplication of Holy-days made the Observation of the Lords day of necessity slacken They have destroyed the Order of Societies established in the Fifth Commandment by the Power they allow the Pope to Depose Princes and absolve Subjects from their Alleageance They teach the murdering and burning all Hereticks that is to say all that will not submit to their Tyranny by which Infinite numbers of Innocent persons have been murdered against the Sixth Commandment And these two Doctrines of deposing Princes and putting Hereticks to death were abhorred by the Church for the first Eight ages and were brought in by the Popes since that time The frequent practice of the Court of Rome in granting Divorces on the pretence either of Spiritual kindred or of Degrees not forbidden either by the Law of Nature or the word of God and allowing second Marriages to both Parties upon such Divorces is an avowed breach of the Seventh Commandment The setting on some Princes to Invade other Princes in their just Rights is the Doctrine as well as it has been the practice of their Church for some Ages And as their Popes have wrested many Territories from Temporal Princes so for many Ages they set on Publick Robbery against the Eighth Commandment The Doctrine of Equivocating both taught and practised the breaking of safe Conducts and publick Faith decreed by their General Councils is also against the Ninth Commandment For the Tenth I shall say nothing of it because the meaning of it is not so generally agreed on But thus we see all the Rules of Morality are contradicted by that Church It might be justly added to swell up this Charge that of late there have been Doctrines published to the world by the approved Casuists of that Church with Licence which subvert all Justice destroy all security and take away the most sacred ties of mankind By the Doctrines of Probability and of Ordering the Intention aright there is no crime how black soever but a man may adventure on it with a good conscience These things were long and openly taught amongst them without any Censure And when many of the French Clergy complained of these at the Court of Rome perhaps more out of spite to the Jesuits than zeal for the Truth it was long before these so just Remonstrances were heard And in conclusion a trifling Censure was past on them by which they were declared Scandalous neither Impious nor Wicked and all were forbidden to teach them any more but they stand yet in the Books formerly published with Licence After all these particulars is it to be wondered at if the morals of the men of that Church be vitiated when their Doctrine is so corrupted for peoples practices are generally worse than their Opinions And thus the Second point is made good that in our Church we teach the same Rules of Living that are in the Scriptures which are grosly corrupted by their Doctrines
The Third Branch of the Christian Religion is the Worship of God and that chiefly the use of the Sacraments For the Worship of God let it be considered that we pray to God and praise him only for all these things about which the Scriptures command us to address to him Our worship is in a Language that all the people understand and so are edified by it according to St. Paul who has enlarged so much on this matter in a whole Chapter that it is strange how any who acknowledg the Authority of that Epistle can deny it Our Liturgies are such that the Romanists cannot except to any part of them Our ceremonies are few and these be both decent and useful So that in all the parts of our Worship we do so exactly agree to the Rule of the Scriptures and the Primitive Church that they cannot blame us for any one Rubrick or Collect in it But for their worship It is in a Language not understood by the people who to be sure can receive no Edification from that they understand not nor can they say Amen to such Devotions This is as it were in spite to St. Paul who took special care that as long as his Authority was in any esteem in the Church such an abuse should never creep into it Nor is there a shadow of Authority for such a practice from the Primitive Church in which for many Ages the Worship was still in the vulgar Tongues Next their Worship is so overcharged with many Rites and Ceremonies that the seriousness of Devotion must needs be much alloyed by them A great part of the Worship is so whispered as if they were muttering Spells Their Books of Exorcisms are the most indecent things that can be full of Charms and other ridiculous Rites And for the Pontifical and Ceremonial of their Church they may match with Heathenism for Superstition Their Offices are so various and numerous and the Rubricks seem so full of disorder that a man may as soon learn a Trade as know all the several parts of them How this can be reconciled to the Simplicity of the Gospel or the Worshipping God in spirit and truth may be easily judged by those who can compare things For the Sacraments we have the Two that Christ Instituted Baptism and the Lords Supper And for Pennance Confirmation Ordination and Marriage we have them also among us as they were appointed by Christ and his Apostles though we do not call these Sacraments For Extream Unction we find no warrant at all for it as a sacred Ordinance and we are sure the Church for many Ages did not think of it For Baptism it is done among us in the very Form our Saviour appointed and this they do not deny But among them they cannot be assured that they are at all Baptized since according to the Doctrine of the necessity of the Intention of the Priest to the Being of a Sacrament they cannot be assured of it for an Atheistical Priest can spoil their Baptism so that unless they can be certain of that which is impossible for them to know I mean the Intention of the Priest they are not sure that they were ever truly Baptized But for the Lords Supper if any person will so far trust his own Reason and senses as to compare all the Warrants we have in Scripture for that Ordinance with the Practice of our Church and theirs they will soon see who agree most to them Christ took Bread which he blessed and gave saying This is my Body which is given for you He also took the Chalice and said Drink ye all of it c. All this we doe and no more so that it is indeed a Communion among us and those who have read the account that Iustin Martyr gives us of the Rites in the Communion in his days would think he were reading the very Abstract of our Office But in the Church of Rome besides the less material things of the Form of the Bread the Consecration of Altars and Vessels with the numberless little devices in the Canon of the Mass that they seem not of such importance let these considerable changes they have made be looked into 1. They have brought in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation against the clearest Evidence both of sense and reason against the nature of a Sacrament and its being a Memorial of Christs Death and that by the very words of Consecration the Bread and Wine are Christs Body and Blood as the one was given for us and the other shed for us on the Cross and not as he is now at the Right hand of God The belief of this crept in by degrees from the eighth Century in which it was first set on foot but much contradicted both in the Eastern and Western Church and was not fully setled till the 13th Century We are sure it was not the Doctrine of the Churches of Rome Constantinople Asia Antioch nor Africk in the 5th and 6th Centuries by express Testimonies from the most esteemed Authors of that time Gelasius Chrysostom Ephrem Theodoret and St. Austin 2. They deny the Chalice to the Laity against the express words of the Institution and contrary both to the Doctrine and Tradition of the Church for 1300 years 3. They have declared the Priests saying Mass to be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the Dead and the Living though the Scripture plainly says That Christ was once offered for us It is true the Primitive Church used the words Sacrifice and Oblation as our Church yet does but their meaning by that was only in the general sense of these terms as Prayers Praises and Alms are called Sacrifices 4. They have brought in a new piece of Worship which is the hearing of Mass without receiving the Sacrament and it is now the great Devotion of their Church Though by the Institution it is as express as can be that the Consecration is only in order to its being a Communion And by the Apostolical Canons which some in their Church believe to be the work of the Apostles and are by them all acknowledged to be a Collection of the Rites of the first Ages all persons that were present at the Worship and did not communicate were to be severely censured 5. The adoring the Sacrament the exposing it on the Altar and carrying it about in solemn Processions to be worshipped as they are late Inventions so if Transubstantiation be not true they are by their own confession the grossest Idolatries that ever were And are not these considerable variations from the first Institution of this Sacrament As for their own Sacraments though there is no reason to equal them to either of these that were instituted by Christ yet some of them we use as they were at first appointed Persons Baptized are Confirmed with Imposition of hands the only Ceremony used by the Apostles We allow the use of Confession and do press it in many cases and give the benefit of