"If his principles and temper be equally illnatured, what will not his furious zeal prompt him to do for the interest of his religion?

"The weaker any Popish prince is, the more will he be governed by his priests; who being every where as bad as such a religion can render them, will not fail to make him act up to all the persecuting principles of their church.

"The more wicked any prince is, the greater hold will his priests (who have an excellent knack of reconciling immorality and religion) have over him; they will indulge him in his worst vices, provided he will atone for them by extirpating heretics; a work so peculiarly charitable, as to hide a multitude of sins from their sight.

"The more godly any Popish prince is, the greater bigot will he be to his religion; and then the honour of his God, the interest of his church, and the securing his own salvation, will most heartily engage him in that pious design of rooting out all heretics from the earth.

"If he be a courageous and wise prince, and have all the good qualities imaginable, yet so long as he is tainted with the abominable superstition of Popery, his wisdom will be but the greater snare to his Protestant subjects; and his courage will the more effectually assist him in the execution of those measures, which his

wisdom shall have contrived for the extirpation of heretics; so that a prince who would otherwise be the greatest blessing, must in this case (so fatal is the influence of Popery) prove the heaviest curse to a Protestant nation.

"In a word, when a prince is persuaded (as the Papists are) that all, who are not of his church, are so hated by God, as to be condemned by him to everlasting misery; from that moment he will think it his duty and glory to imitate the Author of all perfections, and to pursue with all possible hatred those whom God himself hates: and then of whatever temper he be, he will not scruple to put those enemies of God to a temporal death, though to save even but one soul from death eternal; but much less, when it is to bring back a whole nation, that has long been in a state of damnation, into the bosom of that church, in which alone salvation is to be obtained.

"And as no Protestant can draw the least argument for his safety from the disposition of any Popish princes, so their oaths and engagements which they take for that purpose, are not more to be regarded than those of the most profligate villains; the latter, how little soever they may regard them, are yet under no obligation to break them; but the former are, if they will act up to the dictates of their infallible church; which has solemnly determined in the council of Con

stance, that faith is not to be kept with heretics." And therefore when the queen regent of Scotland, to justify her so frequent breaches of her engagements, declared, 'that faith was not to be kept with heretics; and that she would take it on her conscience (notwithstanding all her promises) to kill all her Protestant subjects, she only acted like a most dutiful daughter of holy mother church.' So when in the Irish massacre the Papists murdered all the Protestants who yielded on terms, with their passports and safeguards in their hands, they only followed the example of that infallible council, which most religiously burnt John Huss and Jerom of Prague, notwithstanding their safeconduct.

'Nay, all the oaths that Popish princes make to their Protestant subjects can serve to no other end than to hasten on their destruction; because they, thinking themselves under a prior and greater obligation to God to destroy heretics, must believe that breaking such oaths, and acting steadily and vigorously against them, is the only tie which they can lay upon them. Nor can they in the least boggle at such oaths, since they are taught, that it is no crime to make bold with the sacred name of God, when they

History of the Reformation, Par. 2. pag. 410.

2 This is taken out of Sir John Temple's Authentic History,

act for His service, and lend Heaven their assistance to send its worst enemies, the heretics, to hell.

"In a word, the good of the Romish church (that is, the interest of its priests) being held as the supreme law by its blind votaries, every thing, though never so vile, if it contributes to that end, is esteemed an indispensable duty; and, in truth, the only duty that is so: hence it is, that fraud and force, to which upon all occasions they have recourse, are the two grand supports of the kingdom of Antichrist.

"As no Protestants can depend for a moment on the most solemn engagements of a Popish prince; so neither can their most important services avail them, so long as their prince is persuaded that the extirpation of heretics is a necessary duty : nay, generally those Protestants who have deserved best at their hands (such is the gratitude of Popish princes!) have soonest felt the effects of their unrelenting, persecuting spirit.

"Did not our Popish Queen Mary most solemnly promise the nation the continuance of their religion, and declare (calling God to witness her sincerity) that though for her own part she were of a different faith, yet she would content herself with the private exercise of her religion, and protect and support her Protestant subjects in the enjoyment of their rights? and

yet she was no sooner placed on the throne, but the visor was pulled off, and Smithfield glowed with piles of blazing heretics: and none, as our chronicles relate, felt the weight of her severity more sensibly than the Norfolk and Suffolk men, who, having so little understanding as to believe a protesting Popish queen, hazarded their lives to set the crown on her head; for which she in royal gratitude thought it her duty to give them the first crown of martyrdom: I say the first, because it is plain that nothing but death hindered her from destroying every Protestant in her dominions."

"If we look beyond our own country, and examine the conduct of our next Popish neighbours, we shall find that no treaties, no engagements, no oaths could ever restrain them from using the Protestants after the same barbarous manner. Could any thing be more villanous than the massacre at Paris, and other great cities in France? was there not all imaginable treachery employed to draw the Protestants into the snare? did not the queen-mother most solemnly assure them of her friendship, and the king himself highly caress all the heads of them, making innumerable protestations (always accompanied with oaths) of his sincere kindness for them? and as a finishing stroke, was not a marriage set on foot between his own sister and the king of Navarre, the heads of the Protes

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