rebellion is the enterprise of Amboise An. 1560. But the Protestant Religion had subsisted already forty years in France under the crosse And the Professors of the same though numerous had never fought for their Religion but by their constancy in asserting the truth and suffering for it The enterprise of Amboise was a 〈◊〉 quarrel of State not of Religion and â—â—…andâ—â— the Leader was a man most averse from the Protestant Religion The quarrel was this King Francis the II. being about sixteen years of age and younger in understanding then years was altogether governed by some Lords of the House of Guise then lookt upon as strangers and the Princes of the blood were excluded from the businesses of State These excluded Princes plotted to surprise the Court at Amboise and remove strangers from about the Kings person thinking themselves sufficiently warranted by their quality and interest that plot was cried Thuan. Hist lib. 24. Nullos ex conjuratis convictos fuisse alicujus molitionis in Regemaut Reginam sed tantuÌ„ in exteros sui in Aulâ tyrannicé omnia administrabant nempe Guisianos down as rebellious because it did not take effect and being discovered the House of Guise did not fail to make it a matter of High Treason although the great Thuanus depose for the conspirators that None of them was convicted of any attempt against the King and Queen but onely against strangers who governed all things about the Court in a tyrannical way Who so knoweth the interests of the Princes of the blood in France will never call that attempt treason And if they could do so much by the right of their birth their right was never the worse for their being Protestants Francis II. being dead soon after and his Successor Charls the IX being under age the Princes of the blood had more right then before to claim the management of the publick affairs being intrusted with them by the Laws of the Kingdome in the Kings minority at least in conjunction with the Queen Mother And being excluded from it again they raised an Army to recover their right That right is not considered at all by Jesuites that take upon them now a hundred years after to censure their actions but these Princes and their followers are represented onely as Hereticks and Rebels that made Warre against their Sovereigne After the King was out of minority the Princes and their party seeing that the King was much incensed against them and was of a dangerous and implacable nature durst not come neer him and the frequent Massacres made them keep themselves in a posture of defence and repel force by force To be rid of them at once the King used that famous and unparallelled treachery of a feigned peace with the Protestants sealed with the Marriage of his Sister with the Head of their party the first Prince of the blood next to his Brothers Henry King of Navarre and having invited them to the Wedding he slew them in their beds The number of the slain in cold blood on St. Bartholomew's Day and since within the space of three moneths amounted to about a hundred thousand An action publickly commended by the Pope and the Murtherers rewarded with many spiritual graces by his Holinesse That the relicks of the party after that general execution took defensive arms as it is not to be commended it is not to be wondred at neither Men are not Angels and there is nothing more natural then to strive for life The House of Guise having formed the League pretended for the destruction of Heresie but intended 〈◊〉 them for the pulling down of the Royal House King Henry the III. perceiving this too late made â—â—e of Henry King of Navarre then the apparent Heir of the Crown and of his Protestants Army to oppose the League That King being stabbed by a Monk soon after the Head of the Protestant party became lawful King and his Protestant Army the Royal Army yet their arms then though never so just were as much condemned by the Pope as before and as much taxed of rebellion But that praise cannot be denied to their arms that by them as Gods chief instruments the rebellion of the League was defeated and the lawful King preserved raised and setled upon his Throne whilest the Jesuited Zealots exprest their zeal of religion by attempting to stab him and were too good Catholicks to be good Subjects Since our Adversary alledgeth the words of King James of blessed and glorious memory and sets himself forth under the name of Philanax a Lover of the King he must in duty stand to the judgement of that great and judicious King This Sentence his Majesty pronounceth of that cause which this enemy calleth a Defence of the Right of Kings most unanswerable rebellion pag. 14. I never knew yet saith the King that the French Protestants took arms against their King In the first troubles they stood onely upon their defence Before they took arms they were burnt and massacred every where and the quarrel did not begin for Religion but because when King Francis the II. was under age they had been the refuge of the Princes of the blood expelled from the Court even of the Grandfather of the King now reigning and of that of the Prince of Conde who knew not where to take sanctuary For which the present King hath reason to wish them well It shall not be found that they made any other warre nay is it not true that King Henry the III. sent armies against them to destroy them and yet they ran to his help as soon as they saw him in danger Is it not true that they saved his life at Tours and delivered him from an extreme peril Is it not true that they never forsook neither him nor his Successour in the midst of the revolt and rebellion of most part of the Kingdome raised by the Pope and the greatest part of his Clergy Is it not true that they have assisted him in all his battails and helped much to raise the Crown again which was ready to fall Is it not true that they which persecuted the late King Henry the II. enjoy this day the fruits of the services done by the Protestants who are now maligned not for controversies of Religion but because that if their advice was followed the Crowne of the French Kings should no more depend on the Pope there would be no Frenchman in France that is not the Kings Subject there would be no appeal to Rome of beneficial and matrimonial causes and the Kingdome should be no more tributary under colour of Annats and the like impositions Even Cardinal Perron cleareth them from that imputation of rebellion when he saith that the doctrine of the deposition of Kings by the Pope was received in France till Calvin He doth then silently acknowledge that Kings were ill served before and that those whom he calls hereticks having brought forth the Holy Scripture to the publick sight
have made the Right of Kings known which was opprest before Such a judgement is of great weight coming from a wise King who was truly informed of the businesses of his neighbours Certainly si perito in arte sua credendum est If a skilful Artist must be believed when he speaketh within the compasse of his Art none can decide better what rebellion is and what is not then a great Monarch jealous of the Royal Authority skilled in the duty of Subjects and one that had a long struggling with rebellious spirits This Sentence was pronounced by his Majesty in the year 1615 when France had peace at home and abroad Two years after they had the like testimony of their fidelity from their own King by a Letter of his Majesty written to their Deputies assembled in a Synod at Vitre in these terms Nous avons receu bien volontiers les nouuelles assurances protestations que vous nous auez faites de vostre fidelite obeissance En laquelle persistans comme vous devez que vous auez sait par le passè vous pouuez aussi estre assurez que nous aurons toussours soin de vous maintenir conserver en tous les avantages qui vous ont esté accordez These Letters were printed and published with other Declarations We have received with good satisfaction the new assurances and protestations which you have made unto us of your fidelity and obedience In the which if you persist as you ought and as you have done before you may also be assured that we shall alwayes have a care to maintain and preserve you in all the advantages which have been granted unto you These Letrers bear the Date of May 29. 1617. from Paris Cardinal d'Ossat speaking to Cardinal Aldobrandin Nephew to Clement the VIII about the execrable murther attempted by Iohn Chastel against Henry the IV. of France told him that if Sil y avoit lieu a de tels assassinats ce seroit aux Heretiques a les purchasser executer qu'il a quittez abandonnez qui avoyent a se craindre de luy toutesois ils n'ont rien attenté contre luy ni contre aucun de cinq de nos Roys ses predecesseurs quelque boucherie que leurs Majestez ayent fait desdits Huguenots Card. d'Ossat Epist 8. a Mr. de Velleroy Ian. 25. 1595. pag. 77. such attempts were allowable they were more proper to execute for the Hereticks so he is pleased to call the Protestants whom the King hath left and forsaken and who have reason to stand in fear of him and yet they never attempted any such thing neither against him nor against any of the Kings his predecessors what slaughter soever they have made of the said Hugenots But the greatest testimony of their fidelity is that famous Edict of Nantes which was expressely made to reward them with priviledges for their constant adhering to their King in the long calamities of France Seeing then that the French Protestants were acknowledged good Subjects by their Sovereigne and have deserved by their signal loyalty and long services to the Crowne those few priviledges which they hardly enjoy it is evident how unjust the extraordinary expostulation is That the Roman Catholicks have not the publick allowed exercise of Religion in England as the Protestants have in France There is great reason for that differing dealing The French Protestants have deserved that liberty and more by their constant fidelity and valour having maintained their King with their purses and defended him with their swords so many years against the Jesuitical party who had made a League with strangers to keep him from the Crown and take away his life It is known that the Grandfather of the King now reigning was set upon the Throne by the swords of his Protestant Subjects Let the Jesuitical party of England shew the like service to their Sovereigne whereby they deserve the like recompence What care did they take of the preservation of their Sovereigns lives Queen Elizabeth and King Iames How did they defend their Crowns against the claim and invasion of strangers Did they further or hinder the return of our gracious King now reigning If some few Roman Catholicks have fought for our glorious King and Martyr Charles the I. their whole party fares the better by it now and finds the King a grateful Prince remembring good deeds and forgetting injuries Then the difference of their doctrine in point of Government ought to make a great difference in the allowance of the publick exercise of their Religion The Jesuited Catholicks acknowledge another Sovereigne over their King both for the Spiritual and the Temporal a forreigne power which can dispense them of their Allegiance to him The Protestants acknowledge no Sovereigne above their King and give no jealousie by their doctrine to the Roman Catholick Princes and States under which they live as the Jesuites have done even to Roman Catholicks by whom they have been expelled out of their Dominions as Teachers of a doctrine tending to rebellion Of the troubles that followed who so will give an impartial judgement must look upon the condition of the French Protestants since King Henry IV. bought his peace with the party of the League by the change of his Religion That King seeing himself obliged to provide for the safety of his Protestant subjects by whose armes and long service he had been preserved in his adversities and finally placed upon the Royal Seat gave them some places of strength in several Provinces of the Kingdome for certain years and by an Edict called the Edict of Nantes the free enjoying of their estates and the open exercise of their Religion with some limitation of places Of the priviledges granted them by that Edict there were many infractions especially since the death of Henry the IV. who both by his authority and together by his ancient interest in the Protestant party kept all quiet and preserved them from those wrongs to which the weakest are alwaies obnoxious The term being expired of the grant of those places King Lewis the XIII renewed it for four or five years after which he would have them out of their hands That they were to be restored upon the Kings demand was the opinion of grave Protestants the severest exactors of the obedience of subjects to the Sovereign of my Reverend Father especially who being eminent and respected in the party was a principal means to keep the Protestant Churches on this side Loire in peace and in duty to their King for which his Majesty sent him a considerable summe of money which he refused to take saying that he could be loyal to his King without being bought But the necessity of their keeping those places seemed to be justified by the reason of the first grant which was to preserve them from the violence of their bitter enemies for said they if so many places of safety could not keep us
Adversary layeth a heavy charge upon Melanchton that he should say that the inferiour Magistrates Pag. 105. Melancton in Epit. Moral Philos Id. in lib. de Consil Evangelicis may cut the throats of the superiour and all this for reforming Religion for which he referreth us to two of his Books without quoting the particular place much like the direction of the Goodwifes Letter To my Husband dwelling at the wars But no such thing shall be found in all Melanchton's Works Neither is it suitable to the spirit of that wise and meek man For Calvin by reason of his Aristocratical Doctrine about the Tribunitian power of the tres ordines regni over the King I would leave him for such as he is but that it is my proper business at this time to discover the imposture of my Adversary and he hath committed a signal one against Calvin whom he hath served just as he did Luther before For he brings him upon the Stage Lacerum crudeliter ora Ora manusque ambas as he did the other miserably torn and disfigured Speaking of oaths which bind us to observe and obey Pag. 103. the King he saith that to all oaths of this nature Mr. Calvin from his high Cathedral and Consistorial Tribunal gives this absolution Quibuscunque hujus Evangelii lux affulget c. ab omnibus laqueis juramentis absolvitur I cannot make good English of false Latine of which Calvin is not guilty but it is as familiar with this Gentleman as false Doctrine His meaning is to make Calvin say that when a man is inlightened with the Gospel of Geneva he is free from all oathes to his Sovereign for it is of all oathes of that nature that he makes Mr. Calvin to give absolution But there is a swarm of corruptions in that allegation The words of Calvin are these Quibuscunque ergo Calvin l. 4. Inst c. 13. sect 21. Qui ex Monachismo ad honestum aliquod vivendi genus concedunt fractae fidei perjurii graviter accusantur quod vinculum ut vulgo creditur insolubile quo erant Deo Ecclesiae obligati abruperint At ego nullum fuisse vinculum dico ubi quod homo confirmat Deus abrogat Deinde ut demus fuisse obligatos quū ignoratione Dei errore impliciti venerentur nunc postquā veritatis notitī sunt illuminati simul Christi gratia liberos esse dico Nam si tantam efficaciam habet crux Christi ut à Legis divinae maledictione quâ vincti detinebamur nos absolvat quanto magis ab extraneis vinculis quae nihil sunt quam captiosa Satanae retia nos eruet Quibuscunque ergo Christus luce Evangelii sui affulget non dubium est quin ab omnibus eos laqueis expediat quibus se per superstitionem induerant Christus Evangelii sui luce affulget non dubium est quin ab omnibus eos laqueis expediat quibus se per superstitionem induerant that is As many then as Christ illuminateth with the light of his Gospel no doubt but he sets them free from the suares into which they had ingaged themselves by superstition Without insisting upon all the words which he changeth or addeth or leaveth out He altereth Calvin's question whose discourse I have therefore set in the Margin that the Reader may see that he speaks of Monastical vows which he affirms to be void when by the light of the Gospel they appear to be contrary to the Christian liberty purchased by Christ unto his Church Whereas this Gentleman makes use of that passage to make Calvin absolve subjects of their allegiance to their Sovereigns Where is conscience Where is sincerity Will Jesuites use such pious frauds to make proselytes Habeat jam Roma pudorem I cannot pardon this Gentleman his prevarication about Calvin though I should make a digression for it for is it not good sport to see him defend Calvin when he takes upon him to defame him For having accused Calvin of Delicacy and Epicureisme in his behaviour he brings for a witness Florimond de Remond a Gentleman Pag. 7. of quality who hath left us saith he the lively image of him And when upon that I would see what Florimundus Raymundus Historiae de nativ Haer. c. lib. 7. cap. 10. lively image Florimond de Remond left us of him I found that he giveth this account of his life Calvin from his youth did macerate his body with fasting whither it was to preserve his health and by that abstinence dissipate the fumes of meagrom wherewith he was afflicted or that he might thereby be the more free to write study and exercise his memory The truth is that hardly could a man be found that equalled Calvin in laboriousness For twenty three years that he lived at Geneva he preacht every day and many times twice upon Sundays every week he made publick lessons of Divinity and every Friday he was present at the Colloquy or Conference of Pastors which they call Congregation The rest of his time he imployed in writing Books or answering letters of divers persons Well Sir Jesuite do you tax Calvin of Epicureisme after your confreres and bring convincing proofs against it What discipline must ye expect from your Superiours at Douay for thus betraying their cause It is well if you can scape the Chamber of Meditations In the mean while all those serpentine Geneva Rabbins that conquering Legion of the right cockatrice kind against These are his words Pag. 48 and 49. whom you rail so emphatically will give you thanks for your real help The Adversary having done with Calvin falls upon Beza a man for whom I am less partial then for any of the Reformed Divines herein heir of my Reverend Fathers dislike of him for dashing the fair hopes of agreement in Religion in the Colloquy of Poissy by his immoderate behaviour But to lay a charge upon Beza's Doctrine about the point of the authority of Kings and obedience of subjects he should have taken allegations out of Beza's undoubted Writings not out of pieces without name ascribed to him by his enemies Such is Eusebius Philadelphus Such is the treatise de jure Magistratus which this very Adversary saith to be ascribed by some to Hottoman Such is also Junius Brutus concerning whom we stand to the Oracle of our English Solomon King JAMES in his Defense of the right of Kings against Cardinal Perron Junius Brutus when he objects unto us is an unknown Author and perhaps some of the Roman Church hath made it to make Protestants odious unto Princes The conjectures of that great King are more certain then the affirmations of the Jesuites As for Beza's siding with the Princes of the bloud that were in armes against the Court which our Adversary objects unto him and proveth it by some letters of his and the testimony of Baldwin his enemy the quality of that charge depends upon the nature of that
am not without suspition that when those places of safety were granted to them by Henry the IV. their enemies in the Kings Counsel suggested or furthered that grant for their undoing in the time to come for they might well foresee that on the one side a wise King would not suffer long such a disease in his own bowels as a party of his subjects armed with places of security against him and that on the other side the party so secured would not part with that security for their Religion Liberties and Lives without committing such actions as would make them obnoxious to their Sovereigns anger and their ruine Three or four years after the rendition of all those places to the King the Duke of Montmorancy raised a party against him in Languedock of which he was Governour hoping to find the Protestants which are numerous there prepared subjects for an insurrection yet neither his solicitations nor the resentment of their sufferings could move them to assist him But they joyned universally with the King and did rare service in a battel where that Duke was defeated and taken and with him a Jesuited Bishop And it is to be noted that old Marshal de la Force a Protestant that hardly escaped the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was one of the chief Commanders of the Kings Army The Adversary gives a touch of the wars begun in Germany Bohemia and Hungary in the year 1619. of which he imputes the whole cause to the Protestants I undertake not to justifie their errours I say onely that whoso had looked with an ordinary judgement upon the face of those Countreys as they were then divided and ballanced between the Papist and the Protestant party might have foretold without a spirit of prophecy that they should not enjoy a long peace there being so many free spirits animated to liberty and revenge by the severity of the superstitious house of Austria towards their Protestant subjects If Bethlem Gabor was a prodigious man and a demi-Turk as this man makes him it is nothing to us as Religion justifieth no mans faults no mans faults can condemn Religion The notion under which I fancy that man is that of a cannon-shot without bullet which makes a great and short crack and no effect All that the Adversary saith of his dealing with the Turk sheweth that the Protestants of Hungary were so opprest by the Emperour that they wisht themselves the Turks subjects I pray God they do not so still and with them the other Protestants belonging to the Emperours hereditary Countreys seeing their brethren that live under the Turk enjoy the freedome of their Religion The same reason might make the Protestants of the Empire slow to contribute towards the war against the Turk yet I hear they are as forward as any It is not declaiming against them as the Adversary doth but using them like Christians that will make them joyn heartily with the Emperour in that war The Spanish branch of the house of Austria hath lost great part of Netherlands by the inflexibleness of Philip the II. of Spain to grant liberty of Religion to his Protestant subjects Let the German branch of Austria which useth the like hardness take heed of the like loss The Reformation of Religion in the United Provinces is that upon which the Adversary triumpheth most it being very apparent to his thinking that they brought it in by shaking the Yoke of the King of Spain But there is great difference between reforming and establishing the Reformation The first was done by the Word the second by the Sword and the first forty years before the second The Reformed Religion was spred over the Seventeen Provinces many years before there was any thought of making an Union against the Spaniard neither was that Union made upon the score of Religion but of State for maintaining their Franchises against the oppression of Spain as it was sufficiently justified by their choosing of Francis Duke of Alenson a Roman Catholick for their Prince An. 1583. which they would never have done if the Union had ever marched under the notion of Religion as our Adversary pag. 32. affirmeth or if the Protestants had been the greater number And that Religion was not that which knit the party and that there was no such thing in the Articles it appeared again when some Provinces forsook the Union because the Prince of Orange had put Religion among the causes of their defensive Warre If then the Union was unjust the injustice must not be cast upon Religion since it was not made upon that interest and if it was just it could not become unjust by the accession of the interest of Religion to the other interests So that which way soever the Adversary takes it the Roman Catholicks bear an equal share with the Protestants in the right and wrong of the cause Flanders and Brabant were as guilty as Holland and Zealand The difference is that Flanders and Brabant were beaten to obedience by the Duke of Parma but Holland and Zealand proved too strong for him The World beholds with amazement the successe of that Union that these little Provinces should bring their Prince to be their suppliant that he might be allowed to quit his right over them and acknowledge them Free States yea and to justifie their armes It is that successe not their guilt that makes our Adversary so vehement against them for ill Gamesters will be angry when they are loosers Whether it be out of wilfulnesse or ignorance this Gentleman mis-represents that businesse speaking of the King of Spain as of an absolute Sovereigne of the Low Countries and of the people as of meer Subjects Philip the II. was not their King but their Count. But I have said something of that in my Clamor Regii Sanguinis ad Caelum it is besides my businesse to inquire how the rights of Sovereignty were divided between the Prince and the People which ought to be known before the case be stated If the cause of Religion made the quarrel irreconcileable Philip the II. may thank himself for it Strada the great friend of the Spaniard tells us that the Great Council of Spain represented to the King that unlesse he granted liberty of conscience to his Subjects of the Netherlands the Countrey would be lost and the Warre perpetual whereupon the King fell on his knees before a Crucifix and vowed that he would choose to lose his Dominions rather then to permit heresie so he called the Protestant Religion If many years after they were offered to be secured for their Religion as our Adversary saith which I never heard before it was pag. 39. too late It is an unequitable motion and more advantageous for the Roman party than ours that excesses happening by the ordinary course of humane businesses be not imputed to Religion Oppression will make subjects to shake off the yoke And the prosperity of their defection keeps them from returning to their
Pope and have learned no further of your maximes then will serve them to kill the King and keep rhe crown for themselves And by their gross dealing with their King beheading him upon a Scaffold whereby they have spun a halter for their own necks they have shewed themselves not skilled in the mysteries of King-killing set forth by your Mariana who to put a King to death with less danger to the Actours Mariana lib. 1. cap. 7. Hoc temperamento uti in hac quidem disputatione licebit si non ipse qui perimitur venenum haurire cogitur quo intimis medullis concepto pereat sed exterius ab alio adhibeatur nihil adjuvante co qui perin endus est Nimirum cum tanta vis est veneni in sella eo autveste delibuta ut vim interficiendi habeat Qua artè à Mauris Regibus invenio saepe alios Principes mislis donis veste pretiosa linteis armis ephippiis suisse oppressos then to stab him will have him taken away by poison Yet so mercifull he is to such a King that least he should be accessary to his own death by taking the poison himself in his meat or drink he will have a strong and subtile poison put in a garment or saddle which may spread its mortiferous quality into his body And for that he propounds the example of Moore Kings who have killed their enemies with poisoned presents These Jesuitical curiosities about a murther are too fine for our Northern Fanaticks but for going so far with you as they have done you have reason to cherish them When the businesses of the late bad times are once ripe for an history and time the bringer of truth hath discovered the mysteries of iniquity and the depths of Satan which have wrought so much crime and mischief it will be found that the late rebellion was raised and fostered by the arts of the Court of Rome That Jesuites professed themselves Independent as not depending on the Church of England and Fifth-Monarchy-men that they might pull down the English Monarchy and that in the Committees for the destruction of the King and the Church they had their spies and their agents The Roman Priest and Confessour is known who when he saw the fatal stroke given to our Holy King and Martyr flourished with his sword and said Now the greatest enemy that we had in the world is gone When the newes of that horrible execution came to Roan a Protestant Gentleman of good credit was present in a great company of Jesuited persons where after great expressions of joy the gravest of the company to whom all gave ear spake much after this sort The King of England at his Marriage had promis'd Which is most false us the re-establishing of the Catholick Religion in England and when he delayed to fulfill his promise we summoned him from time to time to performe it We came so far as to tell him that if he would not do it we should be forced to take those courses which would bring him to his destruction We have given him lawful warning and when no warning would serve we have kept our word to him since he would not keep his word to us That grave Rabbies sentence agreeth with this certain intelligence which shall be justified whensoever Authority will require it That the year before the Kings death a select number of English Jesuits were sent from their whole party in England first to Paris to consult with the Faculty of Sorbon then altogether Jesuited to whom they put this question in writing That seeing the State of England was in a likely posture to change Government whether it was lawful for the Catholicks to work that change for the advancing and securing of the Catholick Cause in England by making away the King whom there was no hope to turn from his heresie Which was answered affirmatively After which the same persons went to Rome where the same question being propounded and debated it was concluded by the Pope and his Council that it was both lawful and expedient for the Catholicks to promote that alteration of State What followed that Consultation and Sentence all the World knoweth and how the Jesuites went to work God knoweth and Time the bringer forth of truth will let us know But when the horrible parricide committed in the Kings Sacred Person was so universally cried down as the greatest villany that had been committed in many ages the Pope commanded all the papers about that question to be gathered and burnt In obedience to which order a Roman Catholick in Paris was demanded a Copy which he had of those papers but the Gentleman who had had time to consider and detest the wickednesse of that project refused to give it and shewed it to a Protestant friend of his and related to him the whole carriage of this negotiation with great abhorrency of the practices of the Jesuites In pursuance of that Order from Rome for the pulling down both the Monarch and the Monarchy of England many Jesuites came over who took several shapes to go about their worke but most of them took party in the Army About thirty of them were met by a Protestant Gentleman between Roan and Diepe to whom they said taking him for one of their party that they were going into England and would take Armes in the Independant Army and endeavour to be Agitators A Protestant Lady living in Paris in the time of our late calamities was perswaded by a Jesuit going in scarlet to turn Roman Catholick When the dismal newes of the Kings Murther came to Paris this Lady as all other good English Subjects was most deeply afflicted with it And when this Scarlet Divine came to see her and found her melting in tears about that heavy and common disaster he told her with a smiling countenance that she had no reason to lament but rather to rejoyce seeing that the Catholicks were rid of their greatest enemy and that the Catholick Cause was much furthered by his death Upon which the Lady in great anger put the man down the stairs saying If that be your Religion I have done with you for ever And God hath given her the grace to make her word good hitherto Many intelligent Travellers can tell of the great joy among the English Convents and Seminaries about the Kings death as having overcome their enemy and done their main work for their settlement in England of which they made themselves so sure that the Benedictins were in great care that the Jesuites should not get their land and the English Nunnes were contending who should be Abbesses in England An understanding Gentleman visiting the English Friars of Dunkirke put them upon the discourse of the Kings death and to pump out their sense about it said that the Jesuites had laboured very much to compasse that great work To which they answered that the Jesuites would engrosse to themselves the glory of all great and good works
quarrel of which something must be said before he and I part For Paraeus we are against him about the point of obedience as much as our Adversary His son seeing what Philip. Paraeus Append. ad Rom. 13. Loquitur D. parens meus cum Politicis Iurisconsultis non de Rege absoluta potestate induto sed sub conditione admisso Pag. 23. general opposition his Doctrine found among the Protestants and that the Book was burnt in England by authority made this excuse for his father Valeat quantum valere potest My father speaks with the Politicks and Iurisconsults not of a King invested with absolute power but admitted upon conditions Paraeus considerd not how the world was abroad but how it was in his countrey The Adversary quarrelleth also with Gracerus but hath nothing else to say against him but that he is against the Antichrist Coercenda gladio est Antichristi ambitio which he expounds thus That Antichristian ambition is to be cut off with the sword that is all Princes and Prelates It seems the man taketh part with Antichrist since he taxeth Gracerus for being against him But that Gracerus would cut off Princes and Prelates because he would repress the ambition of Antichrist is a great inconsequence Observe this Gentlemans learning the Verb coercere signifieth repress which is a modest term of Gracerus But our Adversary translates it cut off shewing himself to be as great a scholar in Latine as he approved himself to be in Greek when he translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an eloquent Oration And that his head is much like that upon a clipt sixpence it is a little head without letters His objection of the rebellious Maxims of some Scots Pag. 47 seq as Knox and Buchanan is now stale and out of season since they have been generally condemned and exploded by Protestants both on this and the other side of Rivet Castiga Not. in Epist ad Balsac cap. 13. num 14. sub finem the sea The judgement of the learned Rivet to this purpose is ingenuous and prudent that these things must be imputed to the hot and audacious brains of the Scots then heated again by persecution Let me adde that when the persecution was pretty well overcome they were kept in their heat by sharp contention There being then a Royal Bastard who pretending that his Father had once a designe to make him King followed that designe very close yet closely raising all the troubles he could against the Kings Widow and his legitimate Heir for which the difference of Religion happening about that time gave him fair play for all his ambitious projects were cloaked with the furtherance of the cause of the Gospel This was the man that countenanced that divinity of rebellion Which that it may not be imputed to the Religion I desire all judicious heads maturely to ponder Dr. Rivet's wise observation That the Scots of a hundred and five Kings which they reckon till Queen Mary had deposed three expelled five and killed thirty five I demand then whether all those excesses must be imputed to the doctrine and zeal of Religion If so let the Roman Catholicks look how they shall defend their Religion which then was prevalent But if that must be imputed to the bold and stirring Genius of the Nation why shall the troubles risen under the Queen Regent of Scotland and her daughter Mary be ascribed to Religion and Reformation supposed the cause not the occasion by the managing of crafty self-seeking men of the distempers of the State and the intemperance of pens Yea it shall be found as Dr. Rivet observeth and we find it now that the light of the Evangelical truth did very much mitigate the fierceness of the Nation and that those disorders as turbulent as they were are not comparable to those that were in former times in Scotland which as we are too ingenuous to ascribe to the Religion of those dayes the Papists ought to shew the like ingenuity about the excesses of wits and swords since the coming of the Reformation It were to no purpose to follow all the objections of this Gentleman out of Protestant Writers since whether they be well or ill alledged our belief is not ingaged in their ill opinions nor our reputation concerned in the wrong done to them by perverse and unfaithfull allegations I have discovered so many of them that the Reader may well mistrust his other citations If all were as they are represented they are but so many Doctours opinions strengthened with no approbation of persons authorized for it And to speak after our Most Excellent King JAMES in his Defense of the right of Kings I would not defend all that some private men could say It is enough that in our Religion there is no rule to be found that prescribeth rebellion nor any thing that dispenseth subjects from the oath of their allegiance nor any of our Churches that receive that abominable doctrine This is spoken with a Royal brevity and an imperious weight which both confutes all objections in that kind and together silently retorts upon the Roman Catholicks that among them they have rules that prescribe rebellion and an authority dispensing from the oath of allegiance and that their Church is commanded to receive that abominable doctrine Blessed be God our doctrine about the point of obedience never gave yet jealousie to Kings though of contrary Religion Whereas the Sovereign Courts of the same Princes have expelled the Jesuites for teaching and practising the murther of Kings and condemned the Popes Bulls to be torn for sowing rebellion among the people Is it not a matter for no lesse patience then that of God to see those that teach rebellion by the publick expresse laws of the head of their Church now to charge our Churches with rebellion for some words of private men either falsly imputed unto them or disallowed by the generality of the Protestant Churches Is it for him that hath cut the purse to cry stop the thief Must the Doctors of high treason lay an action of rebellion against us in effect because we will not be rebels with them and acknowledge a King above our King for when all is said that is the ground of the quarrel and we can buy our peace with them at no other rate But before I lay the charge against them at which I long to be I must make an end of answering the charge which they lay against us CHAP. II. Whether the Reformation of Religion ought to be charged with Rebellion Reflections upon the actions of the Protestant party THe Charge of Rebellion which the Adversary layeth against us consisteth in two things The Doctrine of our Divines and the actions of our party especially in the beginnings of the Reformation I have answered the first part of the Charge and shewed that either the Charge is false or it is nothing to us because we have no dependance upon the Authors charged with it
armes with the Kings you may easily judge what loss and what weakning of the party that will be How many of our Nobility will forsake yâ—u some out of treachery some out of weakness Even they who in an Assembly are most vehement in their votes and to And so it proved shew themselves zealous are altogether for violent waies are very often they that will revolt and betray their brethren They bring our distressed Churches to the hottest danger and there leave them going away after they have set the house on fire If there be once fighting or besieging of our towns whatsoever the issue may be of the combat or the siege all that while it will be hard to keep the people animated against us from falling upon our Churches which have neither retreat nor defense And what order soever the Magistrates of contrary Religion take about it they shall never be able to compass it I might also represent unto you many reasons out of the state of our Churches both within and without the Kingdome to shew you that this stirring of yours is altogether unseasonable and that you set sail against wind and tyde But you are clear-sighted enough to see it and to consider in what posture your neighbours are and from whence you may look for help whether among you the vertue and the concord and the quality of the heads is grown or diminisht Certainly this is not the time when the troubling of this pool can heal our diseases And certain it is that if any thing can help so much weakness it must be the zeal of Religion which in the time of our fathers hath upholden us when we had less strength and more vertue But in this cause you shall find that zeal languishing because most of our people believe that this evil might have been avoided without breach of conscience Be ye sure that there will be alwaies disunion among us every time that we shall stir for civil causes and not directly for the cause of the Gospel Against that it is objected that our enemies have determined our ruine that they undermine us by little and little that it is better to begin now then to stay longer Truly that man should be void of common sense that doubted of their ill will And yet when I call to mind our several losses as that of Lectoure Privas and Bearn I finde that we ourselves have contributed to them and it is no wonder that our enemies take no care to remedy our faults and that they joyn with us to do us harm But hence it follows not that we throw the helve after the hatchet and set our house on fire our selves because others are resolved to burn it or take in hand to remedy particular losses by means weak to redress them but strong and certain to ruine the general God who hath so many times diverted the counsels taken for our ruine hath neither lost his power nor altered his will We shall find him the same still if we have the grace to wait for his assistance not casting our selves headlong by our impatience or setting our mind obstinately upon impossibilities Take this for certain that although our enemies seek our ruine they will never undertake it openly without some pretence other and better then that of Religion which we must not give them For if we keep our selves in the obedience which subjects owe to their Sovereign you shall see that while our enemies hope in vain that we shall make our selves guilty by some disobedience God will give them some other work and afford us occasions to shew to his Majesty that we are a body usefull to this State and put him in mind of the signal services that our Churches have done to the late King of glorious memory But if we are so unfortunate that while we keep our selves in our duty the calumnies of our enemies prevail at least we shall get this satisfaction that we have kept all the right on our side and made it appear that we love the peace of the State Notwithstanding all this Gentlemen you may and ought to take order for the safety of your persons For whereas his Majesty and his Counsel have said often that if you separate your selves he will let our Churches enjoy peace and the benefit of his Edicts it is not reasonable that your separation be done with the peril of your persons And whenever you petition for your safe dissolution I trust it will be easily obtained if you make possible requests and such as the misery of the time and the present necessity can bear In the mean while you may advise before you part what should be done if notwithstanding your separation we should be opprest that order your prudence may finde and it is not my part to suggest it unto you If by propounding these things unto you I have exceeded the limits of discretion you will be pleased to impute it to my zeal for the good and preservation of the Church And if this advice of mine is rejected as unworthy of your consideration this comfort I shall have that I have discharged my conscience and retiring my self into some foreign Countrey there I will end those few daies which I have yet to live lamenting the loss of the Church and the destruction of the Temple for the building whereof I have laboured with much more courage and fidelity then success The Lord turn away his wrath from us direct your Assembly and preserve your persons I rest c. From Sedan Feb. 12. 1621. When this Letter was read in the Assembly some arose immediately and left it others continued to sit and by their sitting turned these warnings into prophecies This Epistle will give to the judicious Reader an insight into the affairs of that time and State and together into the present question which is altogether of fact whether and how far the French Protestants may be taxed of disobedience against their Sovereign For it is justified by this relation that when some of them resisted they had the greatest temptation to it that a just fear can present unto flesh and bloud and yet that even then they were disavowed by the best and the most of their Church and exhorted to their duty by their Divines which in points of conscience are the representative persons of a party when they are solemnly met and this was the sense of the National Synod of which this eminent Divine was President but two moneths before Here every wise and charitable Christian should lay David's doctrine to heart Psal 41. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blessed is he that considers with intelligence and judgement him that is in a low condition It is easie for us that enjoy prosperity under a gracious King to determine the point of passive obedience not so for them that groan under the sad burden of the Cross Christian equity ought to pity those that are exposed to the sad counsels of terrour and despair I
shed in Christendome by the meanes of that plague of mankind Pope Julius the II. that it is thought that he was the death of two hundred thousand Christians in seven years time In a Synod of the Gallican Church at Tours it was Nicol. Cilles in Vita Ludov. XIII Thuan. lib. 1. declared that the Pope hath no power to make warre against a Christian Prince and if he do so that the Prince hath power to invade the Popes Territories This the King signifieth to Julius and cites him to answer to a General Council which both the Emperour and he had called to be held at Lyons The Council was held there but soon removed to Pisa where the Council cited Julius to appear and he not appearing was condemned as an Incendiary unworthy to sit at the Helme of the Church and declared deprived of the Papal Dignity There also Lewis coined golden Crownes with this Motto Perdam nomen Babylonis I will destroy the name of Babylon For it is observable that all that have quarrelled with the See of Rome these thirteen hundred years have called it Babylon and Saint Hierom ad Marcellam Hierome was he that began We cannot charge the Successor of Iulins Leo the X. to have stirred Wars abroad he loved too much his ease at home for that But I could not pass by him for indeed his memory is precious to all Protestants for giving occasion to the Reformation by his Indulgences And he is worthy to be recorded for his sentence spoken to his Secretary Cardinall Bembo Quantum nobis Crispinus nostrisque ea de Christo fabula profuerit satis est omnibus saeculis notum an anxiome of too high a nature to be Englished After him came next but one Clement the VII the Fomenter of the quarrell between the Emperour and the French joyning sometimes to the one sometimes to the other and playing false with both whereby he gave occasion to the taking and sacking of Rome The thundering of this Pope and of his Successor Iovius Paul the III. against Henry the VIII did him no harm but to themselves and to the Roman See very much Of the following Popes till Pius the V. the Protestants have much to say as of men that sought their own pleasure and wrought their ruine Hence so much blood split in horrible Massacres But these are besides my subject which is to make the Popes to appear Authors of rebellion But now in a good time we are come to Pius the V. that Pope whom the English Protestants have most reason to remember For without admonition or citation Cambdens Hist of Qu. Elizabeth premised he pronounced a sentence of anathema against that blessed and glorious Queen Elizabeth to raise rebellion in the Kingdome against her Authority and Life and caused the same to be published and set up upon the Pallace Gate of the Bishop of London the Title was this A sentence declaratory of our holy Lord Micolaus Sanderus de schismate Anglicano lib. 3. Pope Pius against Elizabeth Queen of England and the Hereticks adhering unto her Wherein her Subjects are declared absolved from the Oath of Allegiance and every thing due unto her whatsoever and those which from thenceforth obey her are innodated with the anathema In that Bull Pope Pius having first styled himself Servant of Servants declareth that God hath made the Bishop of Rome Prince over all people and all Kingdoms to pluck up destroy scatter consume plant and build Then he calleth Elizabeth the pretended Queen of England the servant of wickedness And having declared her crimes which are to have taken upon her self that supremacy which his Holiness pretended to and to have establish'd the true Catholick Orthodox Religion in her Kingdomes he doth thunder out this seditious Decree against her and all her loyall Subjects We do out of the fulness of our Apostolick power declare the aforesaid Elizabeth being an Heretick and a favourer of Hereticks and her adherents in the matters aforesaid to have incurred the sentence of anathema and to be cut off from the unity of the body of Christ And moreover we do declare her to be deprived of her pretended Title to the Kingdom aforesaid and of all Dominion Dignity and Priviledge whatsoever And also the Nobility Subjects and People of the said Kingdome and all other which have in any sort sworn unto her to be for ever absolved from any such Oath and all manner of duty of Dominion Allegiance and Obedience as we also do by authority of these presents absolve them and do deprive the same Elizabeth of her pretended Title to the Kingdome and all other things abovesaid And we do command and interdict all and every the Noblemen Subjects People and others aforesaid that they presume not to obey her or her Monitions Mandates and Laws And those which shall do to the contrary we do innodate with the like sentence of anathema This Bull was the fire and the roaring of the Canon and the bullet came forth immediately which was the rebellion in the North for which Chapino Vitelli was sent into England from the Duke of Alva under pretence of compounding some controversies about commerce And Nicholas Morton was sent from the Pope to knit the rebellion Which he did denouncing from his Master that Queen Elizabeth was an Heretick and thereby had forfeited to the Pope all her dominion and power At the same time a rebellion broke out in Ireland kindled or blown by a Spaniard Iuan Mendoza And when the Rebells of England were defeated they found refuge among the Papist Rebells of Scotland who set up again the English rebellion All these in vain by the gracious assistance of God to poor England as if his compassion had been stirred up by his jealousie after that the Pope had declared himself so insolently Prince over all People and all Kingdoms to pluck up destroy scatter consume plant and build And God would shew that to himself not to the Pope belongeth the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever Neither did Pius the V. fight onely by Bulls but at the same time that the Bull was published he laid down a hundred thousand Crowns to raise the rebellion and promised fifty thousand more yea and to bear the whole charge of the War That money was distributed by one Ridolpho And how active that Pope was to stirre Spain France and Netherlands against the Queen and to put her Kingdome in combustion is related by Hieronymo Catena an Authour of great credit at Rome in his life of Pius the V. Gregory the XIII succeeded Pius the V. in all his plots against England He gave to Thomas Stukely an English Rebell a Commission to help the Rebells of Ireland and get that Kingdome for the Bastard-Son of his Holiness Iames Boncompagnon and gave him the command of eight hundred Italians to joyn with King Sebastian of Portugal who had engaged his word to the Pope to serve him