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were carried on in various parts of Germany, and even in Bohemia, which continued about thirty years, and the blood of the saints was said to flow like rivers of water. The countries of Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary, were in a similar manner deluged with Protestant blood. In

HOLLAND,

set to work. Terrible persecutions || zealous Protestant, however, was poisoned by a pair of gloves before the marriage was solemnized. Coligni, admiral of France, was basely murdered in his own house, and then thrown out of the window to gratify the malice of the duke of Guise: his head was afterwards cut off, and sent to the king and queen-mother; and his body, after a thousand indignities offered to it, hung up by the feet on a gibbet. After this, the murderers ravaged the whole city of Paris, and butchered, in three days, above ten thousand lords, gentlemen, presidents, and people of all ranks. An horrible scene of things, says Thuanus, when the very streets and passengers resounded with the noise of those that met together for murder and plunder: the groans of those who were dying, and the shrieks of such as were just going to be butchered, were every where heard; the bodies of the slain thrown out of the windows; the courts and chambers of the houses filled with them; the dead bodies of others dragged through the streets; their blood running down the channels in such plenty, that torrents seemed to empty themselves in the neighbouring river: in a word, an innumerable multitude of men, women with child, maidens, and children, were all involved in one common

and in the other low countries, for many years the most amazing cruelties were exercised under the merciless and unrelenting hands of the Spaniards, to whom the inhabitants of that part of the world were then in subjection. Father Paul observes, that these Belgic martyrs were 50,000; but Grotius and others observe that they were 100,000, who suffered by the hand of the executioner. Herein, however, Satan and his agents failed of their purpose; for in the issue great part of the Netherlands shook off the Spanish yoke, and erected themselves into a separate and independent state, which has ever since been considered as one of the principal Protestant countries of the universe.

FRANCE.

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No country, perhaps, has ever produced more martyrs than this. After many cruelties had been exercised against the Protestants, there was a most violent persecution of them in the year 1572, in the reign of Charles IX. Many of the principal Protestants were invited to Paris under a solemn oath of safety, upon occasion of the marriage of the king of Navarre with the French king's sister. The queen dowager of Navarre, a VOL. II.

I i

destruction; and the gates and entrances of the king's palace all besmeared with their blood. From the city of Paris the massacre spread throughout the whole kingdom. In the city of Meaux they threw above two hundred into gaol; and after they

had ravished and killed a great || church of Minerva, at which the number of women, and plundered pope, Gregory XIII, and cardinals the houses of the Protestants, they were present; and that a jubilee executed their fury on those they should be published throughout had imprisoned; and, calling them the whole Christian world, and one by one, they were.) killed, as the cause of it declared to be, to Thuanus expresses, like sheep in return thanks to God for the exa market. In Orleans they mur- tirpation of the enemies of the dered above five hundred, men, truth and church in France. In women, and children, and en- the evening the cannon of St. Anriched themselves with their spoil. gelo were fired to testify the public The same cruelties were practised joy; the whole city illuminated at Angers, Troyes, Bourges, La with bonfires; and no one sign of Charite, and especially at Lyons, rejoicing omitted that was usually where they inhumanly destroyed made for the greatest victories obabove eight hundred Protestants; tained in favour of the Roman children hanging on their parents church !!! necks; parents embracing their But all these persecutions were, children; putting ropes about the however, far exceeded in cruelty necks of some, dragging them by those which took place in the through the streets, and throwing time of Louis XIV. It cannot be them, mangled, torn, and half pleasant to any man's feelings, dead, into the river. According who has the least humanity, to to Thuanus, above 30,000 Pro- recite these dreadful scenes of testants were destroyed in this horror, cruelty, and devastation; massacre; or, as others affirm, but to shew what superstition, above 100,000. But what aggra- bigotry, and fanaticism, are cavated these scenes with still grea- pable of producing, and for the ter wantonness and cruelty, was, purpose of holding up the spi the manner in which the news rit of persecution to contempt, was. received at Rome. When we shall here give as concise a the letters of the pope's legate detail as possible. The troopers, were read in the assembly of soldiers, and dragoons, went inthe cardinals, by which he assured to the Protestants' houses, where the pope that all was transacted they marred and defaced their by the express will and command household stuff; broke their lookof the king, it was immediately ing glasses and other utensils; threw decreed that the pope should about their corn and wine; sold march with his cardinals to the what they could not destroy; and church of St. Mark, and in the thus, in four or five days, the Promost solemn manner give thanks testants were stripped of above to God for so great a blessing con- a million of money. But this was ferred on the see of Rome and not the worst: they turned the the Christian world; and that, dining rooms of gentlemen into on the Monday after, solemn stables for horses, and treated the mass should be celebrated in the owners of the houses where they

quartered with the greatest cruel- hay till they were suffocated. ty, lashing them about, not suf- They tied some under the arms fering them to cat or drink. When with ropes, and plunged them they saw the blood and sweat run again and again into wells; they down their faces, they sluiced bound others, put them to the them with water, and, putting over torture, and with a funnel filled their heads kettle-drums turned them with wine till the fumes of upside down, they made a contin- it took away their reason, when ual din upon them till these un- they made them say they conhappy creatures lost their senses. sented to be Catholics. They At Negreplisse, a town near Mon- stripped them naked, and, after a taubon, they hung up Isaac Favin, thousand indignities, stuck them a Protestant citizen of that place, with pins and needles from head by his arm-pits, and tormented to foot. In some places they him a whole night by pinching tied fathers and husbands to their and tearing off his flesh with pin-bed-posts, and, before their eyes, cers. They made a great fire ravished their wives and daughters round about a boy, twelve years old, who, with hands and eyes lifted up to heaven, cried out, "My God, help me!" and when they found the youth resolved to die rather than renounce his religion, they snatched him from the fire just as he was on the point of being burnt. In several places the soldiers applied red hot irons to the hands and feet of men, and the breasts of women. At Nantes, they hung up several women and maids by their feet, and others by their arm-pits, and thus exposed them to public view stark-naked. They bound mothers, that gave suck, to posts, and let their sucking infants lie languishing in their sight for several days and nights, crying and gasping for life. Some they bound before a great fire, and, being half roasted, let them go; a punishment worse than death. Amidst a thousand hideous cries, they hung up men and women by the hair, and some by their feet, on hooks in chimneys, and lent man were accordingly dug smoked them with wisps and wet out of the grave, where they had

with impunity. They blew up
men and women with bellows till
they burst them. If any, to escape
these barbarities, endeavoured to
save themselves by flight, they
pursued them into the fields and
woods, where they shot at them
like wild beasts, and prohibited
them from departing the kingdom
(a cruelty never practised by Nero
or Dioclesian), upon pain of con-
fiscation of effects, the galleys, the
lash, and perpetual imprisonment.
With these scenes of desolation
and horror the Popish clergy
feasted their eyes, and made only
a matter of laughter and sport of
them!!!

ENGLAND

has also been the seat of much persecution. Though Wickliffe, the first reformer, died peaceably in his bed, yet such was the malice and spirit of persecuting Rome, that his bones were ordered to be dug up, and cast on a dunghill. The remains of this excel

lain undisturbed four-and-forty || two hundred and seventy-seven years. His bones were burnt, and persons; of whom were five bithe ashes cast into an adjoining brook. In the reign of Henry VII, Bilney, Baynam, and many others reformers, were burnt; but when queen Mary came to the throne, the most severe persecutions took place. Hooper and Rogers were burnt in a slow fire. Saunders was cruelly tormented a long time at the stake before he expired. Taylor was put into a barrel of pitch, and fire set to it. Eight illustrious persons, among whom was Ferrar, bishop of St. David's, were sought out, and burnt by the infamous Bonner in a few days. Sixty-seven persons were this year, A. D. 1555, burnt, amongst whom were the famous Protestants Bradford, Ridley, Latimer, and Philpot. In the following year, 1556, eighty-five persons were burnt. Women suffered; and one, in the flames, which burst her womb, being near her time of delivery, a child fell from her into the fire, which being snatched out by some of the observers more human than the rest, the magistrates ordered the babe to be again thrown into the flames, and burnt. Thus even the unborn infant was burnt for heresy! O God, what is human nature when left to itself! Alas! dispositions ferocious as infernal then reign and usurp the breast of man! The queen erected a commission court, which was followed by the destruction of near eighty more. Upon the whole, the number of those who suffered death for the reformed religion in this reign were no less than

shops, twenty-one clergymen, eight gentlemen, eighty-four tradesmen, one hundred husbandmen, labourers, and servants, fifty-five women, and four children. Besides these, there were fifty-four more under prosecution, seven of whom were whipped, and sixteen perished in prison. Nor was the reign of Elizabeth free from this persecuting spirit. If any one refused to conform to the least ceremony in worship, he was cast into prison, where many of the most excellent men in the land perished. Two Protestant Anabaptists were burnt, and many banished. She also, it is said, put two Brownists to death; and though her whole reign was distinguished for its political prosperity, yet it is evident that she did not understand the rights of conscience; for it is said that more sanguinary laws were made in her reign than in any of her predecessors, and her hands were stained both with the blood of Papists and Puritans. James I succeeded Elizabeth: he published a proclamation, commanding all Protestants to conform strictly and without any exception to all the rites and ceremonies of the church of England. Above five hundred clergy were immediately silenced, or degraded for not com plying. Some were excommunicated, and some banished the country. The Dissenters were distressed, censured, and fined in the Star-chamber. Two persons were burnt for heresy, one at Smithfield, and the other at Litch

field. Worn out with endless vex- fine not exceeding fifty pounds;

an ordinance

ations and unceasing persecutions, and imprisonment for a year, for many retired into Holland, and the third offence, in using the from thence to America. It is wit- episcopal book of common prayer, nessed by a judicious historian, even in a private family. In the that, in this and some following following year the Presbyterians reigns, 22,000 persons were ba- applied to parliament, pressing nished from England by persecu- them to enforce uniformity in retion to America. In Charles the ligion, and to extirpate popery, First's time arose the persecuting prelacy, heresy, schism, &c., but Laud, who was the occasion of their petition was rejected; yet in distress to numbers. Dr. Leighton, 1648 the parliament, ruled by for writing a book against the hi- them, published erarchy, was fined ten thousand against heresy, and determined pounds, perpetual imprisonment, that any person who maintained, and whipping. He was whipped, published, or defended the followand then placed in the pillory; ing errors, should suffer death. one of his ears cut off; one side These errors were, 1. Denying the of his nose slit; branded on the being of a God.-2. Denying his cheek with a red hot iron, with omnipresence, omniscience, &c.the letters S. S.; whipped a se- 3. Denying the Trinity in any cond time, and placed in the pil-way.-4. Denying that Christ had lory. A fortnight afterwards, his two natures.-5. Denying the resores being yet uncured, he had the other ear cut off, the other side of his nose slit, and the other cheek branded. He continued in prison till the long parliament set him at liberty. About four years afterwards, William Prynn, a barister, for a book he wrote against the sports on the Lord's day, was deprived from practising at Lincoln's Inn, degraded from his degree at Oxford, set in the pillory, had his ears cut off, imprisoned for life, and fined five thousand pounds. Nor were the Presbyterians, when their government came to be established in England, free from the charge of persecution. In 1645 an ordinance was published, subjecting all who preached or wrote against the Presbyterian directory for public worship to a

surrection, the atonement, the scriptures. In Charles the Second's reign the act of uniformity passed, by which two thousand clergymen were deprived of their benefices. Then followed the conventicle act, and the Oxford act, under which, it is said, eight thousand persons were imprisoned and reduced to want, and many to the grave. In this reign, also, the Quakers were much persecuted, and numbers of them imprisoned. Thus we see how England has bled under the hands of bigotry and persecution; nor was toleration enjoyed until William III came to the throne, who shewed himself a warm friend to the rights of conscience. The accession of the present royal family was auspicious to religious liberty; and, as their

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