The Primitive Practice for Preserving Truth, Section 19
SECT. XIX.
AS the vicious and Atheisticall Popish and popishly affected Prelates and prophane Christians hate and persecute the pious Protestants more then they doe adulterers, swearers, perjurers, or any other notorious delinquents; so the moderate and vertuous Papists of both Orders, abhorre their slaughters, and desire their peace and freedome. Sir John de Old-Castle, in the time of Henry the fifth of England, being convented before Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, and divers other lustfull and bloudy Prelates; Whilest I was (saith he) a swearer, a rioter, and every way else vicious, you never reproved me or questioned me, but since I have imbraced this despised doctrine of Wicklesfe, which hath taught me how to conquer my sinnes, and to lead a godly and an honest life, now you are enraged against me with malice, and seek my destruction. The same true observation was made by Annas Burgus, that brave Senator of Paris in the yeare 1559. under Henry the second of France; That there were many adulteries, perjuries, oaths, and other infamous offences, daily committed, and already punishable by the Lawes, and yet such as were guilty of all or any of those crimes were countenanced and advanced; but against the Protestants all cruelty was practised, who were guilty of no other offence, but of imbracing the truth of the Gospel revealed unto them by the Spirit and Word of God, and of discovering by the same light, the horrible vices and errors of the Popish power, that so there might follow an emendation. To this purpose also tended that Christian advice which a person of noble extraction David Hamilton gave to his Cousin James, Earle of Arran, then Regent of Scotland, in the yeare 1545. when Cardinall Beton would have perswaded and drawn him to have joyned with himselfe in the persecution and slaughter of the godly in that Kingdome. I cannot but wonder, saith he, that you should give up the innocent servants of God himself, against whom no crime is objected, but the preaching of the Gospel, into the hands and power of men most infamous for lust, cruelty, and all other wickednesse, when in the meane time those very enemies of the truth themselves cannot deny, but that the lives of such as professe this doctrine they hate, are full of integrity and vertue. And therefore, although the prophane and bloudy Prelates could never be drawn to pitie Gods children, much lesse to love them for their piety and innocency, being therein more inhumane then divers of the Heathen Emperours themselves, who upon information of the vertuous and harmlesse deportments of the Christians by their governours of Provinces under them, did cause their persecutions to be slackned and ceased. Yet have divers Princes and other moderate Pontificians in the fore-going age, been moved by the upright and honest lives of Gods children, to further their libertie of conscience, and to abhorre the cruelties of their fellow-Romanists practised upon them. Maximilian the Emperour, sonne of Ferdinand the second, and Francis the first, the French King, were hence drawn to permit unto their own Subjects freedome of conscience: The Earles of Egmont and Horne, (though zealous Papists) laboured with the Dutchesse of Parma, that the low-countrey Protestants might be free from fines, imprisonments, and all other persecutions in respect of Religion. Under Francis the second, the French King, in the yeare 1560. by the elaborate and learned speeches of Charles Marillack Archbishop of Vienna, and John de Mon…e Bishop of Valence freely pronounced before the King himselfe, in behalfe of the French Protestants, all persecution against them was for a time remitted; the said Bishop amongst other particulars, not fearing to affirm plainly, That a great increase of the Sectaries did proceed from the ignorance and evill lives of the Bishops, who having cast away the cares of their flocks, had for many yeares studied to inhaunce their fines and rents, and to live deliciously and loosly; so as sometimes there were seene fortie of them at once together mouldering and wasting themselves in Paris in luxury and idlenesse: the care of their Churches being in the meane time delegated over to young and ignorant fellowes; and so the Bishops themselves becoming blind and uselesse, the Parish Priest also following the example of their Diocesans, were onelyonly carefull to spoile and vex the people for their tythes, and wholly unskilfull and negligent in preaching to them; and that therefore it was no wonder, though divers of the Nobilitie, as well as of the common people, did readily hearken to new opinions and doctrines. The same counsell, That the conscience ought not to be forced, nor any to be persecuted for Religion meerly, did Michael Hospitalius Chancellor of France, give unto Charles the ninth, the same yeare upon his new succession to the Crown after the decease of the said Francis his brother; and Paulus Foxius to Henry the third, in the yeare 1574. very copiously, and most eloquently, couched in two severall Orations, inserted at large by Monsieur de Thou, in his unparallel'd History in their due places, who was himselfe nineteen yeares old when that horrible massacre was committed in Paris, in the yeare 1572. on Saint Bartholomenes day, which fell out that yeare on the Lords Day, and did in his very soule abhorre the crueltie and savagenesse thereof, when in his passage through the streets to Mattins that morning, he encountred with divers villaines, dragging along the dead body of Hierome Grolote, late the Governour of Orleance, all weltring with gastly wounds in his own bloud; at which sight his heart relenting, and mourning inwardly, not daring to shed teares publickly, he hastened home to the house of Christopher de Thou his father, at that time the chief President of the Court of Parliament at Paris, there freely to deplore and execrate that Heathenish butchery; as did also the said Christopher his father. Vidus Faber Pibracius, John Merviller, Belieureu, all eminent men, with all the judicious and morally vertuous Papists in the Citie, who Christianly hid up, and so preserved many Protestants secretly in their houses from a wretchlesse massacring; nay, Arman Guntald the old Marshall Biron (father of Charles Duke of Biron, that was beheaded in Henry the fourths time) when the Deputies of Rochel repaired unto him some few weeks after that bloudy execution, to treat of a peaceable accommodation of their affaires with him, he shed many teares in their presence, upon his execrating the authors of that cruelty, and acknowledged it the great blessing of God upon him, that he neither knew of it, nor had any hand in it. At the City of Lions also, where the inhumanity of the murtherers almost equalled that of Paris, Mandelot the Governour there, did his best to have prevented it, and in his heart, with many other grave and sober Citizens of the Romish Religion, utterly detested it. And when the slaughtered bodies were tumbled into the River Rosne, and carried down with the stream to Tornou, Valence, Vienne, and Burg, contiguous to the same River, the Papists generally detested the cruelty. And at Arles, where for want of springs and ponds, they had most use of that river-water; they so much abhorred that butchery, as they would neither drink thereof, nor yet eat any of the fish taken duplicate page duplicate page therein, for divers dayes after; and generally, in all Provence, those of the Romish Religion drew out the mangled bodies out of the water, and with great humanity interred them. Monsieur Carragie, a noble Gentleman the Governour of the great city of Robin in Normandy, did likewise oppose the massacres there to the utmost of his power, as did also James Benedict Lagabaston the prime Senator of Burdeaux, who thereby became himself in danger to have been slain by those seditious varlets, who had been at first stirred up to commit those murthers by the wicked sermons of a lustfull Jesuite, named Enimund Auger. Claudus, Earle of Tende, a descendent of the illustrious House of Savoy, Governour of Provence, Monsieur de Gordes, Governour of Daulphinie, Monsieur Sauteran, Governour of Auvergne, and Francis Duke of Memorancie, particularly and absolutely refused to suffer any massacres to be committed in such places as were under their severall government; so as the Rochellers in their Declaration set out the same yeer, do acknowledge and confesse, that all such Rom mists, who had but any humanity left in them, did in their hearts abhor, and with their mouths detest those hellish outrages and cruelties. And it well appeared, what base varlets they generally were in most places, who were the executioners of those villanies, because their Religion consisted chiefly in robbing and spoiling the Protestants houses, suffering many of them in the mean time beyond their cruell resolutions to escape safely away. Nay, whereas the furious people of Paris already inraged with a blinde zeale, came to a certain white Thorne-tree that blossomed the day of the massacre in St. Innocents Churchyard, in that city, as if God by a miracle had approved their barbarous and sanguinary action; the more judicious Papists, conceived this to have happened by powring of hot water upon the root of that tree, or by some other secret imposture; or if it were a true miracle, then the Protestants alledged, that it might much more justly be interpreted to the advantage of the Protestant Church then of their own: That first the place where the tree grew, being dedicated to the memory of Innocents, argued the innocency of those who were martyred; and that as the same tree at that season of the yeere, being in August, though it shewed life, yet could not have blossomed without a miracle: So the Protestant Church and Religion in France, which seemed by this blow to be utterly extinct and ruined, should again revive, blossome forth and flourish, by the miracalous power of God, in as great splendor and beauty, as over it had done formerly; which the event and issue notwithstanding all the great Processions and high Masses of Pope Gregory the thirteenth and his Conclave at Rome, did accordingly verifie.