The Primitive Practice for Preserving Truth, Section 4 – Section 6
SECT. IV.
THe Electorall House of Saxonic, upon the devesting of that brave and pious Prince John Frederick the true heire by Charles the fifth, and the investing of the younger House, to usurp that honour, hath ever since proved a greater friend to the Popish party, then to the purer Churches of Christendome, of the French and Helvetick confession. Miurice that usurped that Dutchie and Electorate upon the incaptivating of the said Duke John Frederick his Cousin, first ruined the Princes of the Smalcaldick union, to which himself had subscribed, and then casting an ambitious eye upon the Empire it self, broke his faith with the Emperor that had raised him; and having patched up that defection by the means of Eerdinand of Austria, King of Bohemia, afterwards setled in the Imperiall Throne, he lastly perished by a violent death in a pitcht battell, sought against his fellow-Protestants, and left his brother Augustus to succeed him. This new Electorall family aided the Leaguers in France, against that victorious Prince, Henry the Great: They ruined and took prisoner their Cousin, the Duke of Saxon Weymar, (the principall branch of their House) in the Castle of Goth, in the time of Maximilian the Emperor, they put in their far-fetcht pretentions to the Dutchie of Cleeve and Juliers in our dayes, and joyned their Armes with the Archduke Leopold, against the Marquesse of Brandenburg, and the Duke of Newburg, the indubitate heires thereof, whose right also was asserted by the whole Protestant party besides of Christendome. These were the fruits of their miserable errors in doctrine brought in and established by James Andreas Osiander, and their fellow Pseudo-Lutherans, retaining still their Images and Altars in the places of their publique worship, although they confesse them to minister matter of offence to many of the better learned, and matter of superstition to most of the ignorant multitude. Nay, hence in the yeer 1580. did the Pseudo-Lutherans proceed to inforce the Ministers of Saxonie to subscribe, amongst other Articles, to that monstrous error of the Ubiquity of Christs body, exploded with just derision by Bellarmine, and all learned Papists: And from enforced subscription (which is ever for the most part the fore-runner of persecution) they fell in the yeare 1591. upon the death of Duke Christian, the best of all the Electors of the aforesaid Augustus line and race, to shed the innocent bloud of that brave Gentleman and faithfull servant of the State, Paulus Krelius, Chancellor of that Dutchy, for no other delict, but because he was a known friend to the purest doctrine, & a stout Protector of those whom they stiled Calvinists. After which followed the suspension and imprisonment of Urbanus Pierius, Professor of Wittenberg, and of divers other learned and godly Ministers; yea, within a yeare or two after, such was the furious virulencie of the Inhabitants of the Town of Leipsich, led by the Scholars of the Universitie there, (who have since, in these later Germane wars, fully tasted of the divine indignation) as they fell upon the houses and movables of such as embraced the Helvetick Confession, despoiled them of their goods, and committed divers other outrages upon them. But most fatall have been the effects of this last Duke of Saxonie's hovering neutrality in matter of Religion, when at first he refused to be comprised in the Protestant union, entred into by the Germane Princes in the yeare 1617. for their necessary safety, when secondly he sided the yeare following, with the Emperor Matthias, against the Protestant Bohemians. And thirdly, when in the yeare 1620. he joyned his Armies with those of the Emperour Ferdinand the second, (that but a few yeares before lay hid in obscurity, in his slender Patrimony at Gratz.) and so proved one of the chief causes of the utter subversion (for ought we yet see) of the Religion and Liberties of Germany. For had not Frederick the fifth, Prince Elector Palatine, rather aimed at the upholding of true Religion in Bohemia, then at any ambitious ends of his own, he had never hazarded the peace, plenty, and quiet he enjoyed at Heidelberg, to have accepted that controversall crown at Prague, and to have entred that Kingdome in a hostile manner, which for above the space of twelve moneths before had been filled with warre and misery.
SECT. V.
I Doe not finde that any higher or greater punishment was inflicted upon Hereticks themselves in the Primitive times, though they remained obstinate after all other meanes used for convincing them of their errours, then exile or banishment. St. Austin writing to Proculianus the Donatist, acknowledgeth such as erre from the truth, must be drawn home by milde instruction, and not by cruell enforcement. And when Bishop Itacius, in the yeare 383. being a man of a turbulent spirit, and fierce nature, had caused Priscillian the Heretique, and divers of his followers to be put to death; he was first condemned for that bloudy act by Thcognistus: And St. Ambrose afterwards meeting with some Bishops at Triers, that had partaken with Itacius in that cruell execution, would not so much as entertain any communion with them. Theodosius the Emperour, in the Synod of Constantinople, in stead of bloud and irons, caused a publick dispute to be afforded the Arrians themselves, although they had been before condemned by the Councell of Nice: The like mercifull provision did Charles the Great, and Lewes the Good in France, ordaine for such as were counted Sectaries in their times. Neither did those three hundred and eighteen Fathers in the first Nicene Councell, those six hundred and thirty in that of Chalcedon, or those hundred and fifty in that of Constantinople use any other weapons against the same Arrians, Nestorians, and Macedonians, then the Word of God; nor stirred they up, or permitted the Christian Magistrate in their dayes to punish them by death. Paulus Aquiliensis, and Cedrenus, doe also both of them report, that when the Emperour Justinus used clemency towards the very Arrian Heretiques, Theodoricus the King of Italy being infected with the same poyson, did notwithstanding, led by that example, suffer the Orthodox Christians to have the free exercise of their Religion in all his Dominions. Wee shall need no further examples to prove this truth, when it is confessed by one of the most learned and best Romanists of our age, that there is no approved example in all the Monuments of Antiquity, of any execution done upon the Sectaries of those times; but that the Church of God did alwayes abhorre the shedding of bloud in matters that meerly concern Religion, Jac. Aug. Thuanus Prooem. in Histor. p. 5.
SECT. VI.
IT is likewise contrary to the practice of the best Princes, and the wisest States of this latter age of the world, to make matter of heresie it selfe a capitall crime. Francis the first of that name, King of France, having decreed a persecution against the poore Protestants of Merindoll, and Cabrieres, and being informed by William Bellay, Lord Langay, Governour of the Province, that they were harmless men, very laborious in their callings, just in their dealings, loyall to their Prince, charitable to the poore, and very frequent in their prayers to God, & their innocency being likewise cleared in a great measure by Cardinall Sadolet himselfe, he caused them to be freed from further persecution, till being falsly informed by one Minerius, a turbulent fellow, that there were fifteen thousand of them up in armes in rebellion, he rashly gave them over to the fury of their enemies, yet not as Heŕetiques, which he alwayes accounted them, but as Traytors, as he was then mis-informed of them. In Germany, Ferdinand the first, taught by the error of Charles the fifth his elder Brother, found no such meanes to make his Government happy, and his Empire flourishing, as to decree the liberty of Religion. Which course the good Emperour Maximilian his Sonne following, dyed as happy as he lived victorious. The Venetian State indure no Inquisitors in matters of Religion, nor if any of their Subjects be accused of Heresie, doe they suffer it to be questioned before any of the Clergy alone, who are thirsty after bloud, but before them joyntly together, with their Civill Judges. The first Monarch in England that made matter of Religion, a capitall crime, by a publick Act or Statute, was the usurper Henry the fourth, who having by the perswasion and assistance of Thomas Arundell, that traytor, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his fellow-Prelates, deposed and murdered his lawfull Soveraigne, Richard the second, to curry favour with those bloudy Canniballs, was forced to yeeld to the murdering of Gods Saints: since whose time the bloud of the Martyrs in England, have proved the seed of the Church, although by the short raigne of that Kingdomes unfortunate Mary, their number comes far short of those in France, and the seventeene Provinces; in which two Dominions, within the space of little more then five yeares, the curious searcher may finde by diligent inquisition, that Gods truth was sealed under Charles the ninth of France, and Philip the second of Spaine, with the bloud of near upon two hundred thousand Martyrs, amongst whom were slaughtered divers great and eminent personages of both sexes: a cruelty that very Mahumetans doe abhorre; as it appeared by that which the Ambassadours sent from Abas-Meriza the Persian Sultan, to the Emperour Rodolph, in the yeare 1604. did alledge to justifie the mercifull Government of that Empire, to wit, that all Christians had free liberty of Conscience in all their Soveraignes Dominions, and therefore they exhorted his Imperiall Majesty to joyn in a firme league with him against their common enemy the Turke.