and her wheels *. Kingdom has been set against kingdom, princes against their inoffending fubjects, fubjects against their lawful princes; the fathers against their children and the children against the fathers. Wars against heretics have ever been accounted peculiarly holy, and rather more meritorious than those against Mahumetans and infidels †. Plenary remiffions and the golden crowns of paradife have been promised to fuch as took the crofs, and the fword against them. Kings have been advifed, commanded, threatened : * We mean not to repeat martyrologies nor will our room permit fo much as fuperficially to mention.the feveral perfecutions let on foot at different times in France, Bohemia, Piedmont, Netherlands, Poland, Britain, and all countries and corners of Christendom, against those who have kept the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Jefus in all of which the red Dragon hath deeply impressed the marks of his cruel fangs. Under Pagan Rome the persecutions of the church are vulgarly reckoned ten; under Papal Rome they may be faid to be ten times ten. With the account of these many volumes have been filled, which all who would fee the living image of Popery, and all its principles vividly and fully exemplified, may confult. Bonacina, Diana, Caftro, Molanus and a multitude of others maintain the the neceffity of war with heretics, when they are fo ftrong and numerous as that they cannot be extirpated otherwise. "It is clear" faith Cardinal Allen, "what people or perfons foever be declared to be oppofite to God's church; "with what obligation foever either of kindred, friendship, loyalty or fubjec❝tion, I be bound unto them; I may or rather must take up arms against "them and then must we take them for heretics, when our lawful Popes ad66 judge them fo to be. And which (faith Cardinal Pool) is war more holy than that against the Turks." Allen, Admon. to Nob. and Peop. p. 4x. In the beginning of the 13th century, when the Albigenfes, in the province of Albi (from which they had their name) and in other parts, were so multiplied as to cause great jealousy to the See of Rome, the ecclefiaftical mode of war, by croifades, was then employed against them. Preachers were fent abroad through Europe to found the bloody trumpet of vengeance, and affemble the nations to the holy wars, granting the fame pardons and indulgences as had been conferted on the militant pilgrims in the Eaft: yea, paradife was offered fo low, that perfons for ferving only forty days in thefe expeditions might obtain it. And the Pope wrote to all Chriftian princes that they should father earn their pardon, and purchase heaven, by bearing the cross against these men than against the Saracens. By thefe means were the fucceffive legions collected, which under Simon of Montford, Lewis VIII. and Lewis, Arnamed the Saint, destroyed so many thousands of innocent persons, not withbut havock and deftruction to themfelves: for Bertrand the legate, in his letter J threatened and folemnly adjured by the falvation and wounds of Chrift * to perform the pious work. To comply with fuch mandates hath proved the moft effectual way to heal the greatest breaches, and obtain both peace and cordial friendship with Rome +. The moft bloody butchers, the to Honorius defiting his recal, confeffed that within less than 15 years, above 300,000 croffed foldiers had perished. In thefe armies, the legates, and other ecclefiaftics bore the chief fway, animating their fury, and hardening them in cruelty. They difplayed their crucifixes before them, (which all the captains, before they began battle, adored with a humble kifs) afsuring all of the forgivenefs of their fins who died in the quarrel: as the bishops of Tholouse and Comminges did when the pilgrims engaged and defeated the King of Arragon, the Earls of Tholoufe, Comminges, and Foix at Muret on the river Garonne, with the flaughter of 400,000 men, or as the victors reported 2,000,000, which they boafted they had flain in the battle or purfuit.-The fame methods of war have been followed, and like encouragements granted by the church and clergy of Rome ever fince, when heretics were to be exterminated.-Immediately before the rifing in Ireland in 1641, the priests were affiduous in perfuading the people not to spare man, woman, nor child of the Proteftants, telling them that "it would do them much good to wash their hands in their "blood" they told them "they were worfe than dogs, for they were devils, " and ferved the devil, and therefore the killing of them was a meritorious “act, and a rare preservative against the pains of purgatory; for that the "bodies of fuch as fell in the caufe fhould not be cold, before their fouls "should ascend up into heaven," which made fome boaft, after they had flain many of the English, that they knew if they should die prefently, they fhould go ftraight to heaven.-So meritorious is this work accounted, that pardors have been promised to any who provided a faggot or a twig to burn a heretic: when one Peck was put into the fire at Ipswich, in Henry VIII's reign, Doctor Reading ftanding by, faid, "to as many as shall caft a stick to the "burning of this heretic, my lord bishop of Norwich grants 40 days pardon.” Whereupon Baron Curfon, Sir John Audley, and others rofe from their feats, cut down boughs, and threw them into the fire; and the multitude did the like. Bafnage, Clark, Moreri. *Thefe are the words of Pope Martin V. in his bull against the Huffices in 1420, whereby the emperor and other princes were inftigated to thofe wars which ravaged Bohemi fo many years after; in the course of which the va liant Taborites made fuch a noble and fuccefsful defence, and gave fo many fignal defeats and fevere chaftifements to their powerful and unjuft oppreffois. "That Bulla Huffitica," fays Eneas Sylvius, who himself afterwards filled the papal chair," will be rather a matter of admiration than belief to pofterity." † Frederic II. after he had made war upon the Pope, and had been twice excommunicated as a monster worse than Judas or Nero, procured his peace and the most active and remorfelefs perfecutors have fhared moft liberally of her honours, and largeffes, her benedictions and panegyrics*. To help them in the profecution of abfolution from Gregory IX, by paying 120,000 ounces of gold, and by publifhing fome cruel edicts against the Albigenfian refugees, who had fled from deftra&tion in their own country into the empire, which afterwards became the ftanding laws of the empire; by which "they were branded with perpetual “ignominy, and declared public enemies; their goods were to be confiscated, "themselves burnt alive and their heirs to be dißinherited: fuch as recanted were to be shut up in a perpetual prifon. The fame punishment was to be inflicted on all who favoured or affifted them, The houfes where they lived, "or into which they were received, were appointed to be deftroyed, and never more rebuilt: and the inquifitors were every where to be protected.”—Such was the peace offering made to the Roman idol, who is never more delighted than with hecatombs of human facrifices! Lewis XIV. had long and violent differences with the See of Rome, so that he scarcely escaped depofition and his kingdom an interdict, but no fooner had be given the deadly blow to his Proteftant fubjects by repealing the edict of Nantes, and employed his dragoons and gallies, and all the arts of a tyrant to root them out, than all his paft offences were expiated and forgot, and Rome graciously smiled and fawned upon him. The Pope wrote him a complimentary letter upon the occafion, acknowledging his good fervice, and celebrating his piety and zeal in the warmest ftrains, Spanh. Hift. Chr, col. 1656. Quick, Synodic. p. 156. * Earl Simon, who became the general of the croffed armies in the Albigenfian war, after others had refufed the poft; who had razed many cities and laughtered the inhabitants, without fparing man, woman or child; who buried them alive in pits, and cast them into fires by hundreds and four hundreds at a time, for reward was by the legate in a council at Montpelier in 1214, declared the prince of all the countries he had thus conquered or fhould conquer, which title was confirmed to him by the Pope, who filed him, the active and dexterous foldier of Fefus Chrift, and the invincible defender of the Catholic faith. These titles and donations were further confirmed to him by the council of Lateran in the following year whereupon he went to the king of France to receive inveftiture, and in every city and village as he paffed, the Popish clergy and people met him (as the monk of Serny writes) crying, Bleed is be that cometh o us in the name of the Lord; and every one thought himself happy that could but touch the hem of his garment. Yet vengeance fuffered him not long to enjoy his honours and new poffeffions, but soon after, when befieging Thouloufe, having received a wound, as he laboured to get out of the prefs, a ftone difcharged from the walls of the city by the hands of a woman, parted his head from his body, and brought this invincible general, like another Sifera or Abimelech, to an ignominious and deferved end. Henry of this caufe, the Pontiffs have zealously contributed both fpiritual and temporal aids: they have paid troops, fent forth their Henry VIII. in the days when his zeal burnt hot for Rome, was not only honoured with the title of Defender of the faith, but twice received the golden rose from Julius II. and Leo X: which is so folemnly blessed on the fourth Sabbath of Lent, by the Popes, and bestowed only on their greatest favourites. The fame compliment did Martin V. fend to his faithful fon; and fervant the emperor in 1418, who received it with the highest respect and humble veneration, feated on the Imperial throne. The holy rofe, enriched with precious flones, was carried under a magnificent canopy, and prefented by the cardinals, bishops, electors, and princes, accompanied with an incredible multitude of people. The duke of Parma who headed the Spanish troops which fo long oppreffed and ravaged the Low Countries, had a sword sent to him from the Pope, and ftatues were erected to his honour. Sixtus V. honoured the duke of Guife, the head of the bloody league in France, with another fword of the fame kind, ordering it to be delivered to him in token of his paternal affection, and affuring him that he held the principal place in the pontifical breaft. This gift was publicly prefented to him in Paris with great ceremony and triumph; which having been resented by king Henry III. the Pope wrote him a letter by way of apology, exhorting him to maintain his prerogative, and fupprefs the rebellion of his fubjects, and added, "that a canker in the ftate was only to be cured by "fire and fword, and that it was necessary for him to give a vent to some of "that blood which abounded too much in the veins of his fubjects.” Lewis called the Great had a higher eulogium bestowed upon him for being a priest-ridden zealot against herely, than for all his other atchievements, not only by the Pope, but the whole herd of clergy and fycophantish bigots in his kingdom. The bishop of Valence in a harangue made to him in the name of the convention of the French clergy at St. Germain's in 1684, after recounting the many pretended converfions made by the royal mandates, bribes, threats, c. fays, In vain should I search into the ages paft, in vain should I call to my affistance all the panegyrics of the first and holiest emperors."-And, after complimenting him with the titles of the great restorer of the faith, and extirpater of herefy, he tells him, that " thefe infinitely furmounted all his other glorious titles." Then speaking of his master's great victories in Germany, Flanders, &c. and the peace of Nimiguen, following upon them, he adds, "that the fuit which the king had received by that peace, made it fully apparent, what was the principal end he aimed at in thefe victories." And indeed this was nothing more than what the Monarque himself avowed in the preamble to the infamous edict of revocation. Befides what innumerable medals, tables, statnes, triumphal arches, appeared exhibiting the hero in the glorious attitude, - crushing the hydra under his feet? Courtiers, academicians, orators, and pruts, joined in refounding his praises. Nay, the poeteffes and gentle Şapphos of the age were not wanting with their incenfe and perfumes to embalm the name of the eccl-fiaftical Domitian: witness the pretty ode of Madame De their militia, collected and expended treafures, granted tithes, while the clergy and religious of every order have cheerfully fhoulieres fur la defluction de l' berefie; in which the tells him he had achieved fomething far beyond the most glorious of his ancestors, even fomething more than human; and that his people only complained of his too great modefty that would not allow them to raise temples to him, and worship him as a divinity. A de fi grands fuccès tout le ciel applaudit; Que d'ames ton fecours dérobe à fes fupplices? On tabaisse, il n'eft plus d'affez grands noms pour toi Inftruit par cent et cent examples Qu'à de moindres mortels on a báti des temples, Qui, fi ta picté n'y mettoit des obstacles, Tes jours fertiles en miracles Nous forceroient à t'adorer. Bafnage. Clark. Materi. Gregor. Leti, Vita di Sifto V. tome ii. p. 307, 308. Anfw. to the late K. Jam. declarat. 1689, p. 8, 9. Poëfies de Madame et dë Mademoiselle Defhoul, tome i. p. 83. * Charles V. having been long pressed to make war on the Proteftants in Germany, chtered into a league with the Pope for that end, which after diffem. bling for a time, and amufing the princes of the party with conferences, he at laft avowed in a diet at Ratifbone in 1546. "The fame day," fays Maim. burg, "Cardinal Madruce poffed away from Ratisbone, to carry the news of that declaration to the Pope who waited for it with impatience. He imme diately affembled the confiftory, where, as had been agreed upon with the emperor, he declared, on his part, war against the Proteftants, and made "Cardinal Trivulcio read the treaty which he had made with that prince after the diet of Wormes, by which the emperor obliged himself to make war with thofe of the Smalcaldic league in the end of the month of June that year, "to bring them back to the ancient religion, and the obedience which they <owed to the Holy See, without having it in his power to make an agreement "with them, or grant them any thing relating to religion, without the confent "of the apoftolic legate. And the Pope alfo reciprocally obliged himself to him, to maintain at his own expence, for the space of fix months, the army de which he was to fend him of 12,000 foot and goo horfe, permitting him to take for a year the half of the revenues of the churches of Spain, and to fell prefently for 500,000 crowns the lands belonging to the monafteries of that kingdom, on concition that he should refund them again after the war. And fo the Pope herchy declared evidently, that it was a war of religon.”~ Siz 1 tus |