❧ The Complaint of England.  
Wherein it is clearly proved that the practices of Traitorous Papists against the state of this Realm, and the person of her Majesty, are in Divinity unlawful, odious in Nature, and ridiculous in policy.  
In the which they are reproved of wilful blindness, in that they see not the filthiness of the Romish government: and convinced of desperate madness, in that they fear not the mischief of Spanish invasion: The former whereof is exemplified by the Pope's practices both here in England, and abroad in other countries: the later by the Spaniards outrages, in his exactions raised upon Naples, and his tyrannies executed in the Indies.  
Lastly the necessity, equity, and benefits of the late proceeding in justice are set down; with a friendly warning to seditious Papists for their amendment; and an effectual consolation to faithful subjects for their encouragement.  
Fata viam invenient, aderitque vocatus Apollo.  
Seen and allowed.  
LONDON Printed by john Wolf, dwelling in Distaff lane, near the sign of the Castle▪ 1587.   

 blazon or coat of arms  

Sic sibi Walworthus caeso latrone perenne  
sic urbi peperit Londigenísque decus.  
Londigena infestum patriae qui nutriet hostem  
Londigenis pariet dedecus atque sibi.    

TO THE HONOURABLE SIR George Barn Knight, Lord Mayor of the City of London; and the right worshipful the Aldermen his Brethren and assistants, peace and joy in Christ jesus.  
IT is an axiom concluded in philosophy, and a truth apparent in daily experience, that small forces firmly united and compacted in one, grow to be mighty in continuance of time: whereas matters of far greater moment being separated either by casual division, or wilful discord, are easily ruinated, and suddenly brought to confusion. And therefore Nature in all her actions intending unity, buildeth her whole frame upon the groundwork of sweet harmony, and musical consent: tempering the qualities in each several body with such indifferent proportion, that albeit some one overrule the rest, yet it is not permitted to overthrow them: but they all by a secret sympathy & mutual agreement, endeavour to support the one the others burden. But whensoever this unisone is interrupted by jarring of the parts, then is Nature by violence racked out of her course, and thereupon ensueth the subversion of the whole. Seeing then unity is the mark whereat Nature aimeth, and the very mean to preserve her works: and seeing such things of all others do chief promise perpetuity, as draw nearest to the rule of Nature; it is an undoubted consequent that those common wealths have greatest likelihood of prosperity, & least cause of decay, wherein concord is nourished, and dissension suppressed. Mitigation of punishment is a dangerous imboldening of malicious adversaries; and obstinate purposes, unless they be timely prevented by politic foresight, and restrained by special penalty, are often times too late repent, when in the end they burst out into unlawful practices, to the disturbance of public unity and the procurement of common confusion. Therefore as the maintenance of unity is an instrument that conserveth the state: so is execution of justice the golden pillar that upholdeth unity. The which prop so long as it shall stand in force (but it must stand in force so long as England will desire to rest in safety) I hope the Traitorous intents of England's and English enemies shall be utterly frustrate, neither shall they have so great cause to triumph for their victories, as she hath now just reason to complain of their treacheries. For by the cutting off, of putrefied members the whole body may be delivered from peril: and by avoiding odious jars, amiable unity may be retained. But if their hidden rancour be suffered inwardly to fester, and further to disperse itself, than it is greatly to be feared lest the contagion thereof breed a fouler malady, then can be cured with an ordinary plaster. In respect whereof your honours & worship's travails jointly and severally employed in these dangerous times, as they argue a studious zeal and affectionate devotion towards your natural Prince and country: so do they merit all titles of singular commendation. The renown of divers your predecessors is with capital letters so enregistered in the book of Fame, that neither the darksome vail of Oblivion can overshadow it, nor the forked sting of detraction at any time cancel it. In imitation of whose worthiness if ye shall constantly proceed, as ye have already laudably begun, it will appear that virtue yet stoopeth not for age, and that common care is not brought a sleep by private profit. This argument might minister ample matter of true discourse: but lest my words should be wrested beyond the level of my thoughts, & so attainted with suspicion of flattery, I wrap that up in silence which I might very well utter without any impeachment of insinuation; omitting your industrious care for sifting out recusants, your diligent search for discovery of factions, your watchful regard for appeasing of mutinies, your charitable provision for relieving of Orphans, with divers other matters of importance greatly behoveful to the state of this Realm, & properly incident to the duties of good Magistrates. And seeing these are the days wherein treason is coloured with religion & malice armed with policy, I have in this treatise detected the dealings of Traitors, and used dissuasions by manifesting the dangers annexed to their proceed. The which for that it is framed in the person of England whom ye have oft assisted in extremities, I have published under your L. and W. patronage, and offer the same to your acceptance, whom th'almighty protect with his power, and guide with his grace.  
Your L. and W. at command, William Lightfoot.   

Ad pontificios Apostrophe.  
PApicola ergo fremis, triplicis quòd pompa tiarae  
sordet, & in nihilum perdita Roma ruit?  
Papa quòd est vulgò papae; quòd Roma, ruina;  
missa quòd est monstrum; papicola ergo fremis?  
Vah freme; frendat aper, furiat rabiosa caterua:  
evomat in proprium toxica dir a sinum.  
Accingis lateri gladios, vibrasque sagittas,  
confodit ast pectus tortilis hasta tuum.  
In fumos abeunt cerebri deliria laesi,  
machina quam fabricas mole suapte ruit.  
Nos ridere minas; nos flocci pendere pugnas;  
nos tremere ad belli fulmina falsa nihil.  
Pastor oves curat, sic curat Christus ouile,  
praedantemque fugat peruigil ipse lupum.  
Et nos sub Christi placidè requiescimus umbra:  
hem tibi: te fasces, virga, crucesque manent.  
Dum simulas Petrum, in petram comping is ineptè:  
inde luent scapulae; papicola ergo geme.  
Dum stimulum calcas, intentat Alecto flagellum,  
imminet in poenam vindice dura manu.  
Insultas tumidus quasi victima pinguis in aras,  
nescius (o) fati; papicola ergo geme.  
Pro fremitu gemitus subeat, cedatque dolori  
iam dolus, & curae sit tibi sola salus.  
Reginam & patriam miseris iactare procellis  
impius optâsti; papicola ergo geme.  
Guil. L.   

❧ The Complaint of England.  
England speaketh.  
THe sorrows which I have locked up within the closet of my amazed thoughts, springing from the infected puddle of those unnatural and mischievous attempts, that have been lately practised for the working of my ruin, by undermining of my state, are now grown to such extremity of passion, that they, in a manner, bereave my soul of comfort, and debar my speech of passage. And although I have small hope by my persuasions to restrain them from treacherous and desperate enterprises, 
Small hope to prevail by words when deeds take no place.  whom by my benefftes I cannot allure to continue in loyal obedience: (who having their judgement blinded with ambitious desire of promotion; their hearts obstinately grounded on wilful opinion of error; their minds dangerously envenomed with the poison of inveterate malice: have (I fear me) banished all fear of God, quenched each spark of religion, and renounced all respect of allegiance) yet it may be that if I shall by manifest● and infallible demonstration prove, that the instruments they have devised for mine overthrow, will in conclusion redound to their own destruction: and the weapons they daily forge to gore my sides withal, must needs in the end cut their own throats, and be sheathed in their proper entrails: then (I say) it is possible that the regard of their own safety, 
Doubt of danger a bridle for a brain sick jade.  may be very forcible to stir up in them some relenting motions, though the headstrong fury of their resolution will not give them leave to consider the heinousness of their purpose, nor to hearken to the justness of my complaint. At the least I am assured of this, that how soever they have by villainous dove's sold themselves to be vessels and vassals of iniquity, how soever they have received the stamp of the beast in their forehead, how soever they have taken aforehand the earnest penny of their grand captain Satan to accomplish his command: yet this I know, that the Almighty, who from the highest heavens looketh with single eye into the bottom and most secret corners of their double hearts, will in the zeal of his justice award them a wrathful and irrevocable sentence of judgement, from the which they shall not appeal, repaying vengeance for their hire; and will in the fullness of his compassion behold myna innocency, making heaven and earth to wonder at their madness, the world to witness their outrages, and their own convicted consciences to testify how undeservedly they have undertaken against me, the execution of such monstrous and merciless intentions. How can I but blush to call them sons, who violating the sacred laws of nature, have sought to prefer an unjust stepdame before their most loving mother? 
They that change the liberty of the Gospel for popish thraldom, must needs live by the loss, and purchase repentance at too dear a rate.  How can I but sorrow at their senseless and over grown dissolutions, who rejecting the sweet yoke of dutiful subjection, presume to lift up their heel against her head, under whose feet they ought to lay down their lives? And needs must I condemn their abject and caitiff courage, who being free borne and enjoying absolute liberty, are notwithstanding so bewitched with strong delusions, that going about under a frivolous pretence of purchasing greater freedom (forsooth) to their consciences, they are contented to abandon themselves in perpetual slavery to such tyranny, as doth not only accustom itself to make havoc of substance and possessions; to exercise butcherly massacres on the body; but it also over chargeth the soul with clogs of spiritual bondage, which being once taken are intolerable to bear, and almost impossible to shake off.  
Come near me yet my sons, my disobedient sons: (woe is me that the instinct of nature enforceth me to call you sons, who have so much degenerated in your ungracious behaviours, that you shame and scorn to acknowledge me for your mother) come near me (I say) sequester not yourselves from my presence, but tell me from what ground this strangeness ariseth. If from fear; (which I hardly believe) know that I which enclosed you in my bowels, nursed you at my breasts, embraced you in mine arms, and carry you still engraven on the table of my heart, have not forgotten the affection of a mother, but am willing to grant you pardon for your faults, if you can find grace to be sorry for the same: and therefore be not afraid. If from shame; (which I hearty wish) then shall I think that this is the first step to your amendment, when I perceive you abashed at the conceit of your former lewdness; and then shall I hope you will take a new course, when I see you break off from your old bias. It is no shame to be ashamed of evil doing: it is never too late to reform bad conditions. The medicine cometh not out of time that bringeth remedy when it is ministered: and therefore set shame aside. If from self-love or malice; 
Truth must needs have a cold suit where malice is chief juror and partiality judge.  (which by conjectures more than probable I am induced deeply to suspect) remember that selfo love is partial, and bolteth out his verdict before he have throughlie examined the cause: know that malice is blind, and lieth always in the heavier balance, making equity to seem light weight: and therefore away with such companions. So then whence soever this strangeness ariseth, draw near notwithstanding, and let us a while reason together. I will not assume the title of my just authority: I will not challenge the privilege of a mother: neither will I greatly urge you with the duty of Children: but we will deal indifferently, and so where the fault is justly found, there shall the blame worthily remain.  
Say on then; what sufficient reasons, or what injurious surmises feed this discontented humour in you? Why speak you not? what argueth this stlence? this guilty silence? May it sound credible in any impartial ears, that you have with such rigorous censure condemned me, with such unslakt thirst of revenge persecuted me, against whom you cannot allege any colourable accusation? Answer me, and so disburden your consciences; or else bethink you what answer you will then frame, when you shallbe summoned to appear before the supreme tribunal in the highest court of Parliament; where you cannot plead by proxy, nor entertain your attorney; where all popish dispensations shall be frustrate; where no construction of advantage will be admitted; where devised cavils shallbe excluded; where God himself shallbe plaintiff, advocate, and judge, to commence action, to bear witness, & to pronounce sentence against you. If I had consumed your wealth by the exactions of Naples, if I had disturbed your quiet by the Inquisition of Seville, 
Neither private wrong nor public wrack can serve to bolster out traitorous intentes.  if I had tyrannised your lives by Spanish cruelties, or enthralled your souls to Romish superstition, then might you have shaped out some shadow of reason, & pretended argument of probability, for the opposing of yourselves, and the deposing of her, who had sought to forment you with such hellish miseries: yet were the foundation too too weak, for to build either open rebellion, 
Psalm, 10 5.  or secret conspiracy thereupon. Are ye not expressly forbidden to touch the Lords anointed? and can it then be warranted unto you, to lay violent hands and griping paws upon her? I warrant you it is a leaden warrant for the baseness, and brazen for the impudency; try it when you list at the touchstone, you shall find it not currant, but counterfeit; and they will in fine prove themselves Calves, that hope to suck any comfort or confidence out of such a Bull.  
Know ye not that he who dwelleth in heaven, 
Psalm. 2.  laugheth them to scorn that furiously rage, or so much as take counsel together against him and his anointed? and annexeth to his derision burning wrath and sore displeasure, bruising them with a rod of iron, and breaking them in pieces like a potter's vessel? Suppose ye that the quarrel of the Lords anointed concerneth him not, or toucheth him not to the very quick? will not he, think ye, redress the wrong, and take the cause into his own hands? have ye lived so long, and learned so little? or do ye know this perfectly, and yet practise the contrary purposely? O blind as Béetles, if ye see not this: O faithless as Atheists, if ye believe not this? O foolish as Idiots, if ye beware it not: Would it not be accounted, I will not say a point of ridiculous folly, but an evident proof of extreme madness in the highest degree, if a seely person enfeebled by long sickness, should in the beldem rage and frantic bitterness of his malady presume to encounter a valiant champion, and to wrest the weapon out of his hands? And can it in common estimation be thought less than detestable impiety, that men long languishing in a consumption of reason, but abounding with a contagious humour of innovation, forlorn in hope, fallen from grace, and reprobate in sense, shall in the fit & agony of their brainsick disease, rear up ladders to scale the Monarchy, combining themselves by force to seize upon the awful sceptre, and with tooth and nail to bite and scratch after the crown on their Prince's head? What is it to wage battle, 
They that resist a lawful Prince make war against the living God.  and maintain wars with God, if this be not? This is to verify the fable of the giants, who are said to have rampired bulwarks, and mounted their engines, threatening to dislodge jupiter of his throne.  
It is manifest that David the chosen servant of God, 
1. Sam. 24.  notwithstanding that Saul causeless pursued him, and like an enraged Tiger greedily hasting after his prey, so hunted after his soul: yet at such time as Saul at unwares entered into the cave where David with his servants were covertly hidden, albeit David was by his men of war animated, and by incessant importunity urged to lay hold upon present occasion, and so to prevent future peril, who in most vehement manner enforced their purpose, saying: See, the day is come whereof the Lord said unto thee, Behold I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, and thou shalt do with him as it shall seem good to thee: 
This example of David ought to be throughlie weighed and trueite followed.  yet, neither the ruthful consideration of his perplexed estate, nor the peremptory threats of his sworn enemy, nor the effectual obtestations of his approved soldiers could any jot prevail with him for the accomplishment of an action so heinous and accursed. But he was touched in his heart, because he had touched and cut off the lap of his Lord's garment. And thereupon discovering himself, he inclined his face to the earth, and bowed himself before Saul, manifessing his innocency. Saul astonished at the matter, and deeply ravished with the contemplation of such undeserved favour, and inexpected courtesy, lift up his voice and wept, saying unto David: Thou art more righteous than I: for I have wrought thee evil, and thou hast rendered me good: for who shall find his enemy, and let him departed free? And afterward (as appeareth in thesequel of the history) when saul's power fight against the Philistines, was discomfited, and himself despairing of victory, and weary of life, fell upon the point of his sword: at such time as a young man of the Amalekites, thinking to deliver an acceptable message, and hoping he should have reaped a gladsome welcome for reporting such joyful tidings, told unto David that he at the entreaty and instant request of Saul, had dispatched him of his life, the enjoying whereof was irksome and full of anguish unto him: and more, lest he should have omitted any thing, that he thought might gratify David, or work his singular contentment, he presented him with the crown that he had taken from saul's head, thereby both confirming the truth of his speeches, and also (after a sort) installing David in possession of the same: yet was he so far from rejoicing, either in that his adversaries death had finished his troubles, and assured him of his life with security, or that none other could forestall him in obtaining the kingdom, that he rend his clothes, wept & fasted until evening, and then said to the messenger: 
2. Sam. 1.  How wast thou not afraid to put forth thine hand to destroy the anointed of the Lord? Thy blood be upon thine own head; for thine own mouth hath testified against thee. And therewith commanded one of his servants to fall upon him, who smote him that he died.  
This one example, if the volume of God's book, (which is the testament of his truth, and the storehouse of his promises) did not afford any greater plenty, might alone suffice, for the deciding of a question so needless, and so ungodly. This alone might serve for the suppressing of such hateful conspiracies, as the graceless broods of mongrel monsters (I mean English Italianates) do engender and hatch within their devilish conceits. This, yea this being authentic, undoubted, and entangled with no scruple, might alone serve for a most exquisite precedent, whereto ye ought to conform your thoughts, and whereby ye ought to confirm that reverend opinion, which all men are to carry of lawful Princes being God's deputies. In the which sithence there are divers occurrents well worthy the observation, it will not be impertinent slightly to glance at, and briefly to comprise the resemblances and differences, which show themselves in this fact of David, and this faction of yours: that for so much as the nature of contraries is best tried by matching and comparing the one with the other: therefore by how much the fact of David shall appear more just and righteous, by so much will your faction be proved more odious and damnable. Saul, because he disobeyed the commandment of the Lord uttered by the mouth of the Prophet Samuel, was forsaken of God: God's holy spirit departed from him, and an evil spirit took possession of him: David was by Samuel anointed king in his stead. Yet would he not presume to dispossess Saul of his kingdom: but endured grievous calamities which by the malice of Saul were inflicted upon him. He was distressed in the towns with doubt of treacheries; vexed in the wilderness with the scourge of penury; reproached by the churl Nabal with the infamous title of runagate; constrained in king Achis Court to counterfeit madness; sustaining a burden of miseries heavier than Aetna, and almost overwhelmed with an Ocean of perplexities. Yet did he with all meekness and patience attend the lords leisure, 
The application of the former example.  wholly relying upon his promises, which he knew should be performed at such time as God in his secret counsel and foreknowledge had determined. But you like wretches, and of all other most wretched, because wilfully wretched, living in a land wherein the heavens drop down fatness, where honey distilleth from the stony rock: a land not much inferior to the land of Canaan: a land much resembling the happiness of Paradise; (as one of your own complices lately confessed) living under the regiment of a virtuous Princess and renowned Sovereign; a Princess every way superior to Saul, and cannot by her greatest enemies be impeached with any crime common to her with Saul: howbeit it was feared that Agag the Amalekite, 
Because Saul spared Agag. God rejected Saul.  the professed adversary of God's people should have been spared: but (thanked be God) her loving subjects to their general rejoicing are now disburdened of that fear. A Princess whose sunbright honour dazzleth the eyes of foreign monarchs; whose zealous inclination, like an inestimable Diamond enchased upon a peerless jewel, beautifieth all other virtues that attend upon her person; whose affectionate love to her subjects is wonderful, passing the love of David & jonathan; (and yet was their love passing the love of women) who tempereth justice with mercy, extending mercy without partiality, and executing justice without rigour: yet you through abundance and prosperity are become wanton and insolent; 
Fullness is the mother of forgetfulness and wealth nurseth wantonness.  through her too much grace and favour ye are grown obdurate and rebellious; endeavouring to supplant her, who studieth to support you; devising her overthrow, whose welfare is the surest ankerhold to defend you from shipwreck.  
Saul was rejected of God, yet durst not David annoy him: your dread sovereign being legitimate heir and rightful successor, was both established by God, and allowed by men; and is at this day by his singular providence so miraculously preserved, that your wicked imaginations had ere this been her destruction, and with her had many thousands perished, and with them yourselves (howsoever you persuade yourselves) had not he overspread her with the resplendisant beams of his fatherly protection. But you will say she was excommunicated by Pius Quintus: (more truly might he be termed Impius) this objection, though it might very well have been answered with silence, being so weak, lame, and out of joint as it is: yet hath it been so thoroughly canvased, and so plainly confuted already, that it hath good cause as much to be ashamed of the patrons and defenders thereof, as they have just reason (had they any reason at all) to be ashamed of it. Only, of Pope Pius the thunderer of that excommunication, and of his equals, the Popes I mean, (for of equality otherwise, the Papacy is by all means impatient, and can no more tolerate a compéere, than the firmament can contain two Suns: as one of their own side full learnedly squared out the comparison) thus much will I say: Cui plus licet quàm par est, plus vult quàm licet: He that may do more than is meet, will do more than he may.  
But to proceed: did not opportunity of revenge with unfolded arms present herself to David, at such time as Saul unaccompanied entered into the cave where David with his assistants were assembled? Saul had often served him with a crooked measure: 
In revenging no man may be his own car●er.  might he not now have measured to him by the same list? Saul had saluted him with many cross courtesies: had he not now liberty to pay him home in his own coin, and to return usury besides the due debt? Had he not ability to do this? Nay, had he not reason, if he should have reasoned with human reason? No doubt David managed a dangerous conflict, and like a Captain most valiant, gave the repulse to assaults most violent, wherein loyal duty contended with lawless necessity: and fleshly infirmity combated with divine ordinance. Desire of a kingdom, having a course to compass it with such facility, is a plausible Rhetorician, cunning to persuade: (for, Si ius Violandum est, regni causa Violandum est: if the limits of law may be infringed, then for a kingdoms cause may they be infringed) but assurance of life being environed with manifest hazard of death, is a mighty Orator able to convince. But as he gains a double conquest, that in conquest can conquer himself: so shall he be recompensed with triple punishment, that is by any carnal persuasions enticed, whether of benemous hatred, or honourable advancement, or any other thing whatsoever, to accept of worldly benefit, and to neglect heavenly prescription. If we shall censure of the matter only according to ordinary estimation, without question the honour David purchased by vanquishing the Heathenish Golias, was not half so glorious, as that he deserved by subduing his own thoughts, in refraining to proffer violence to an anointed king. Which execrable offence if he had committed, it had exceeded both the adulterous abusing of Barsabe, and the wrongful murdering of Urias, so much as a villainy practised against a Prince, surpasseth an injury inferred to a private man.  
I think it not requisite too much to insist upon every particular circumstance of the comparison; but I would wish you to weigh this with yourselves. David for fear withdrew himself from saul's presence: some of you of malicious intent estrange yourselves, 
The practices of jesuits & S●●●tnarie pr●●●s.  cursetting over like fugitives into other nations, and there plant yourselves in those Seminaries, whose Gardener is Antichrist, whose seeds are errors, whose fruits are treasons. Where when you have perfectly learned your lesson, to transform Christian religion into profane policy, and to change policy into treachery; then like plants of such a soil, like pupils of such a Tutor, like Scholars of ripe wits (yet not so ripe as rotten) ye turn over a new leaf, and from contemplation ye fall to practise; wherein ye so behave yourselves, that, as he was reputed amongst the barbarous Scythians the bravest Gentleman that had committed the most bloody slaughters: so is he amongst you esteemed the notablest Catholic, that can bring most souls to confusion. And then ye begin to imitate the Snake who casts off her old coat, but retains her old poison still: so come ye disguised in your habit marching on like Maskers, having in stead of visors shameless foreheads, and fronts untaught to blush: but I would ye were Mummers, or else that your lips were as surely sealed and sere as your consciences are, with an hot iron: for than should we by your signs give a guess of your meaning. And though ye hoard up venom in your hearts, yet are your words smother than oil: though your speeches be sweeter than honey, yet is the bitterness of gall and wormwood hidden, yea, the poison of Asps lurketh under your lips. The Asp through the exceeding coldness of his nature, mortifieth the member that he woundeth with his sting. And therefore Cleopatra, at such time as she was deprived of her paramour Marcus Antonius, being wholly overcome and swallowed up with sorrow, set two Asps to her breasts, which benumbing her senses cast her into a sleep, into a dead sleep, even into her last sleep. In like manner, you fastening upon those that are as devoutly addicted to the flesh pots of Egypt, as ever the Egyptian Nueene was enamoured of Antony, and yet seeming to have queasy stomachs, loathe the heavenly Manna, accounting it a light meat, of evil nourishment and hard digestion: ye strike while the iron is hot, and finding them pliable to alteration, ye work them like wax, feeding their humours, and promising to restore their old delights: and so with your poisoned persuasions, ye rock some a sleep in ignorance; others ye bring to their latest sleep, and their longest home. This is the level of your devise; 
The leaven of the jesuits worse than the leaven of the pharisees.  this is the leaven of your doctrine. A little of this leaven leaveneth the whole lump: and therefore let all strive to purge out this leaven, for there is no leaven like to this leaven, no, not the leaven of the pharisees. But those vp-start merchants that bring over such deceitful drugs, are worthy to pay their heartblood for custom; the which howsoever through their packing and conveyance they sometime avoid, let it not embolden them in their unbridled presumptions, but let them fear (except they speedily change their copy, & hearty repent) lest the Almighty recompense their leaven with Levin from heaven, and strike them with flashing lightning, as he did Tullus Hostilius: yea, let them fear, lest the fire of his indignation devour them, as the flame licketh up the stubble, and lest he rain down upon them snares, fire, brimstone, storm and tempest: for this is the portion of hypocrites.  
Yet if ye did thus desist, and surcease from heaping up the full measure of your wickedness, then should not my soul be confounded with so great astonishment. But as the wild ivy creeping along on the ground, beginneth at the first to embrace the lower part of the Oak, and so cunningly climbeth up by degrees, till at last it overpéere the highest branch, and then eating through the rind pierceth to the inward pith, sucketh out the purest sap and natural moisture, to the imperishing and decaying of the whole trunk: or as poison having attainted the least member of the body, and farthest distant from the heart, disperseth itself into the hidden passages of the veins, and beateth up and down in every path till it have found the highway to the heart: where so soon as it is settled, it bendeth his force, and exerciseth all violence, till it have choked the fountain, and razed the foundation of life: so do ye lay your platform, first by parasitical insinuation to nestle in the consciences of inferior persons, hoping to fortify your faction, by linking a multitude into the same confederacy: but the mark you shoot at, is the sacred person of her majesty. But before either your dissembled zeal, or your glozing flattery, or your deadly poison, take so deep root, rise to so full height, or breed so incurable a mischief: your hope shall (I hope) be disappointed, yourselves shallbe rooted from that earth, and rot in the air, that so your venom may return into your own bosoms. Never were the fens of Lerna so dangerous: never was that monster Hydra so pernicious, to the inhabitants bordering and confining thereby: as the dens of traitorous papists, and the devices of that seven-headed Romish Beast would prove fatal to me and mine, if the puissant and victorious Lion of the tribe of juda, did not with vigilant eyes watch over us for our defence, and with his outstretched arm uphold us from falling into the gaping jaws and bottomless gulf of so ravening a bloodsucker. It is recorded in history, how that notable robber Cacus was accustomed to drag cattle backward by the tails into his Cave: to the end that the print of their footing appearing contrary, he might escape free from suspicion of the theft: so is it your fashion to inveigle diverse of those whom you intent to make attors in your tragical exploits, giving them instructions to practise popular demeanour, and carry a countenance of ordinary conformity, 
Papists under holy looks carry hollow hearts  howsoever they stand in heart affected to the truth, or infected with treason: showing themselves in this point like to cunning watermen, who cast their eye one way, when they take their course another. The Lord will (I doubt not) in due time allot to such halting ambodexters, success answerable to their sinister meanings: that as that Flindermouse lighting into the Hawks talons, argued she was in mouse, by the proportion of her body: and after falling into the cats claws, pleaded she was a bird by the fluttering of her wings: and was of the one disdained, and of the other devoured: so I wish that such hollow hearted votaries as serve the time, but to serve their turn, looking when time will turn, that they may turn with time: might be thoroughly tried, slowly trusted, but rather surely trussed, and so receive a competent guerdon for their demerits. And though they seek to shadow their purposes with a veil of obscurity, and shuffle up their acts in tenebris: yet if that careful circumspection be had, which the necessity of these times requireth, and the sutlety of such enemies importunately craveth, it willbe a matter of no great difficulty, to discern the Wolves, though they wander in sheeps clothing, by the noise of their howling: and to descry the Ass, though he jest in the lions skin, by the length of his ears. Yea, unless the multitude of our offences stop the course of God's mercies, and eclipse the brightness of his favour that hath so long shined upon us, he will so disclose their whisperings in their secret chambers, that they shallbe preached on the house tops: he will cause the fowls of the air, & the beasts of the field to bewray & proclaim their drifts, manifesting his glory in the preservation of his heritage, & confusion of their adversaries. And as he broke the wheels of the Egyptians Chariots, when they pursued the Israelites: so will he dash in pieces all their engines, & force them to cry out, as the Egyptians than did, saying: We will flee from the face of Israel, 
Exod. 14.  for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians. Then shall they that have accepted the wages of unrighteousness, burst out with Balaam into these words: 
Num. 23.  how shall we curse, where God hath not cursed? or how shall we detest where the Lord hath not detested? Then shall their great Master for grief of heart roar out with julian the Apostata, saying: Vicisti Galilaee, vicisti: acknowledging his overthrow to proceed from Christ, whom he hath as scornfully abused as ever did Julian; confessing him in word, but in heart denying him: profaning the sincerity of his gospel, reproaching the baseness of his humanity, despitefully persecuting him in his members, & (what in him lieth) crucifying again the son of God.  
With this hope, as with a precious cordial, do I recomfort my languishing spirits: with this as with a sovereign restority, do I revive my fainting courage: with this as with a gentle emplaster, do I qualify the rigour of my passionate and biting grievances, knowing that he which keepeth Israel, doth neither slumber nor sleep: 
Genes. 41.  but he will busy Pharaos' fantasy with troublesome dreams, for the releasing of Joseph, & the sustaining of jacob: 
Ester. 6.  he will deprive Assuerus of his natural rest, for the deliverance of Israel, & the destruction of Haman: 
Dan. 3.  and notwithstanding Nabuchadnezzar command God's children to be thrown into the fiery Furnace: yet shall the fire forget his property to burn, the flame shall forego his scorching heat, and altar th'effects prescribed by nature: his Angel shall with watchful regard minister unto them, so that, not one hair of their head shallbe burnt, neither their coats changed, nor any smell of fire shall come upon them. Though the Midianites and Amalekites marshal their forces, 
judic. 7.  and encamp against the Lord's people, like grasshoppers for multitude, and as the sands by the sea fide, which are without number: yet will he give Gedeon the victory, while they as men distract of their wits, shall broche the breasts of their neighbours and fellows in arms with their own sword. 
Psalm. 118.  This is the Lords doing, & it is wonderful in our eyes. Wonderful in deed, and passing wonderful, if we behold it with fleshly eyes, & measure it by the level of carnal capacity: but if God sharpen the eyesight of our faith, then shall we clearly perceive, that he tendereth the safety of his chosen, as the apple of high eye, & causeth all his creatures to employ their service to their behoof: giving withal his and their enemies to understand, that all wisdom is folly, and all strength infirmity, that is opposed against the Lord of hosts.  
Now seeing the matter standeth thus, tell me (ye perverse generation) with what hope do ye cast to contrive so execrable purposes? 
Navis stultorum.  Now can ye expect a prosperous wind to land your vessel at the desired haven, seeing your ship is freighted with superstition & ballasted with treason: such trumperies as he that flieth on the wings of the winds utterly abhorreth? Why despise ye the Lords holy temple in jerusalem? Why trudge ye so fast unto Dan to offer? 
1. Sam. 5.  why post ye from Dan to Bethel to please jeroboam? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice: and to hearken to the voice of God, is better than the fat of Rams. How can Dagon the Idol of the Philistines stand, where the Ark of God is in place? needs must he fall flat to th'earth: and though the Idolatrous priests labour to erect him again, yet shall his latter fall be more shameful than the first: his head & his hands shallbe cut of: he shall neither have the reason, nor the power to lift up himself any more. 
The Pope compared to the Idol of the Philistines.  The Dagon of the Philistives was said to be like a man in the upper parts, but from the navel downward like a fish: your Dagon of Rome, is neither flesh nor fish: but as he flesheth himself by bathing in the blood of faithful and innocent Martyrs: so maketh he all fish that comes to net, by fashioning religion as may best serve to increase his revenue, & enrich his coffers. Whose misshaped deformities if they were artificially pourtracted & lively depainted in fresh colours as an object for every man's eye, then might I question as the Poet did: 
Spectatum admissirisum teneatis amici?  
Friends, had you leave to look your fill,  
how could you choose but laugh?   
Why then are ye so highly offended that Dagon is fallen? why take ye it so at the heart, that I have abridged his authority, & emptied my cask of such stinking dregs? have I done any other thing than cast corrupted & unsavoury salt on the dunghill, as his proper place? Therefore let me say unto you, as joas said to the men the were so furiously incensed against Gedeon, for breaking down the altar of Baal: 
judic. 6.  will ye plead Baal's cause? or will ye save him? he that will contend for him, let him die ere morning. If he be God, let him plead for himself against him that hath cast down his altar.  
David sorrowed & repented himself in that he had cut off saul's skirt. O grief to be commended so accompanied with grace. You storm & repine that you cannot cut short the blossom of my joy, & glory of my garland. O grief to be condemned so far past all grace. But repent, repent even while it is called too day: fall down upon the bended knees of your hearts before the Lords footstool: with all humility and supplication sue for grace at the throne of grace. Which unless ye do, know for a certainty, that as David's commendation dieth not, so your condemnation sleepeth not: only the Lord lifteth up his hand on high, that he may inflict the deeper wound when he striketh. 
Obedience to Princes a principle in nature.  Now if this singular example of David pierce not your hearts with a godly remorse, yet consider that obedience to Princes is a principle in nature, who hath engraved in every man's mind a religious impression of duty in subjects toward their sovereigns. Yea, she hath instituted a law which the very unreasonable creatures duly observe among themselves: as, the beasts give place to the Lion, and the fowls yield reverence, to the Eagle. Neither hath there been any nation so destitute of civility, wherein some one, either for that he was descended from royal parentage, or for the honourable opinion they conceived of his virtues, obtained not the greatest titles of dignity, and retained not the highest seat of pre-eminence. Though jezebel were a woman of a vile disposition, who reposed her chief felicity in the performing of wicked & tyrannous actions: yet was not the light of nature so quite extinguished in her, but that she judged it an inexpiable offence to murder a lawful King. For when Jehu the son of Nimshi, 
2. Reg. ●.  was by Elizeus commanded to smite the house of Ahab, and to avenge the blood of the servants and Prophets of the Lord: having slain jehoram (the younger son of Ahab, who reigned over Israel after the death of his brother Ahaziah) he came to Izreel, where Jezebel painting her face, 
jezebel condemned treason against Princes.  and tiring her head, looked out at the window, and said: Had Zimri peace that slew his master? Which speech, though it were grounded upon a wrong conjecture: (because that burden was specially laid upon the house of Ahab by God's appointment, and jehu particularly deputed to that charge: whereas Zimri having no express warrant to show, went further than his commission extended) yet it implieth thus much, that she thought it a most odious crime, & was also persuaded that vengeance should duly and continually attend upon the same, even at the hard heels, as it had done upon Zimri. And therefore Jezebel, not able to discern the difference in those deeds, nor to give a distinction answerable to the natures of the facts, upon premises of divers quality, inferred probably, though indirectly, a semblable conclusion. For albeit the Lord by that mouth of his Prophet denounced dreadful threatenings against the family of Baasha: yet was not Zimri commanded to conspire against Elah the son of Baasha, nor by killing of him to aspire to the kingdom, nor by encroaching upon the kingdom to root out the stock of Baasha. Therefore the treason that he wrought against his Lord and master, the cruelties he practised against that house & lineage, were requited unto him, at such time as the hearts of the people being alienated from him, they consented to abrogate that usurped authority, as the birds agreed to disrobe Aesop's daw of his stolen plumes: and making Omri their general, they went & besieged Tirzah, where Zimri kept himself in hold: which being taken, he for fear he should have fallen into his enemies hands, fled into the king's palace, and setting the house on fire burnt himself and so died.  
So then the difference to be noted between jehu and Zimri is apparent enough. Whereof, whether jezebel were in deed ignorant, or that she did of set purpose compare jehu to Zimri, either to daunt him with the conceit, or disgrace him with the reproach of so infamous a comparison: yet is this necessarily to be gathered, the she accounted the slaying of his natural anointed Prince, a thing most worthy all titles of opprobrious ignominy, & all scourges of extreme revenge. 
jezebel shall sentence against traitors.  Shall not then jezebel be justified in respect of you? Nay, shall not jezebel rise in judgement & condemn you? And how shameful will your overthrow be, when the testimony & verdict of so graceless a woman, shall stand in force against you: who (because ye are birds of the same feather she was of) would no doubt afford you all possible favour, if the indignity of your cause were capable of any colour or excuse? What shall I think, what may I hope, or what must I not fear, if these examples drawn out of holy scriptures, work not in you proportional effect? If the word of God, which is so mighty in operation: which surpasseth in sharpness any two edged sword: 
H●b. 4.  which entereth even through to the dividing in sunder of the soul and the spirit, the joints and the marrow: If (I say) it wound not your thoughts, but the you stand as still & void of sense, as if it turned edge: then needs must my wits be wrapped up in amazement, & my smiling hope be changed into chéerles fear: and where I perceive the putrefaction to exceed all possibility of remedy by applying mild & temperate medicines, there must I use violent means, sharp corrosives, yea, cautery & incision. And though you contemn divine oracles, yet will not I refuse to hearken to the wholesome counsel of the Peet where he saith: 
Cuncta priùs tentanda, sed immedicabile vulnus  
Ense recîdendum, ne pars sincera trahatur.  Which is, 
Try first all ways to salve the sore,  
if cureless thou it see:  
Then cut it off, lest sounder parts  
therewith infected be.   
But because ye so much affect the title of Romanists, look a little into the lives of ancient Romans, and you shall see how much ye come behind them in virtuous endeavours, and how far ye go beyond them in lewd conditions. At how light a price did Curtius value his life, 
The very heathens have preferred their country's ●●●ty before their own life.  when he threw himself headlong into the pestilent gulf, which belched up deadly corruption, & breathed out infectious vapours; which could not by any other means be stopped, but by casting that jewel into it, which of all other under the Sun was most precious? Which thing when the Citizens of Rome, had with wasteful loss of their treasures in vain assayed to effect, he knowing nothing could in worthiness compare with man's soul, voluntarily accorded to sacrifice himself for the safeguard of his country. What should I talk of Mutius Scaevola, who because he failed in dispatching Porsenna, the enemy that sought the wrack of his native city, punished that oversight in himself, by consuming his hand in the flame? To what end should I record the invincible magnanimity of Horatius Cocles, who to withstand the furious incursion of his country's foes, kept all alone the passage where the enemies gave the assault, & by his single resistance gave singular proof of his incredible valour? what should I stand to commend the honourable dealing of Fabritius Consul of Rome, to whom, during the wars he held with Pyrrhus' king of the Epirotes, the king's physician made proffer the upon assurance of reward he would poison his master: but Fabritius princely courage disdaining to conquer his enemy by entrapping him in snares of villainy, presently disclosed the matter to Pyrrhus? God grant that all foreign Princes may carry such minds as Fabritius did: and th'almighty defend my sovereign from all such attendants as Pyrrhus' physician was: that no English breast harbour any Spanish heart, nor subjects hand acquaint itself with tempering Italian physic. To be short, what shall I need to extol Att. Regulus for his unspotted fidelity, who having entered into solemn oath, either to send back the captives from Rome to Carthage, or else to render himself prisoner into their hands: when be saw the delivery of the captives would prejudice the honour of his country, he was content rather to return to his enemies, & to endure most exquisite torments, then either to make breach of his promise, or to infer detriment to the common wealth: thinking it better to end his life in torture as a faithful captive, then to prolong it in pleasure like a perjured senator. I am the more willing to conceal & pass over the application of these examples, because it doth redouble my sorrows to think, the heathens should overcome Christians: or Romans Englishmen in piety & devotion to their country. But (O unspeakable grief) I can neither find in you Curtius' faith, nor Scaevolas zeal, nor Horatius' courage, nor Regulus constancy. You attempt my destruction, contrary to Curtius; you imagine your sovereigns death, contrary to Scaevola: you desire to bring in strange forces, contrary to Horatius: you deny loyalty to your friends, whereas Regulus performed faithfulness to his enemies. Regulus kept promise with his foes, because he would not endamage his country: you break promise with your friends, & enter league with your foes, because ye would ruinated your country. Unworthy therefore are ye to be numbered among such men: 
Traitors are men in shape, but beasts in behaviour.  unworthy to live among christian men: nay, unworthy to carry the names of men, having little in effect but the outward shape of men. Ye have defaced the beauty of human nature, in deforming your minds with brutish behaviour. Ye have learned to weave Spiders webs, and to hatch Cockatrices eggs. Ye have learned of the Toad to swell above natural proportion: of the Wolf to bark against the Moon: of the wild Ass to bray against the thunder: of the Owl to eschew the light of the Sun: and of the Viper to gnaw through the bowels of your mother. Much more I might say, but I willingly refrain, lest my speeches should seem rather to be distempered with partial choler, then seasoned with loving affection.  
I could never yet understand that any traitor closed up his last days with honour, or the his grey hairs went down to the grave in peace: 
The end of Traitors nuserable.  but though for a time he so flourished in pomp of worldly felicity, the there might seem neither to have been place for better fortune, nor fear of worse: yet was his jollity nought else but grins to entangle his desires withal, the being drunken with excess of vanity, & surfeiting upon all variety of pleasure, he might be pampered up like an Ox the in the stall is made fat for the slaughter. To which purpose if I should begin to discourse, beside the I should enter into a wide open field: I should also light a candle at noon day, in reporting that whereof these times have made you eiewitnesses. Therefore I will only point with the finger at one or two examples taken forth of our own Chronicles: which, for the they are in their kind passing notable, ought not to be buried in silence. Richard the usurper, raging like a foaming Boar, sought by force to open the way to his wilful & inordinate desire of sovereignty, sparing neither age, sex, affinity nor degree, till he had invested himself with the regal Diadem, & was then persuaded that he had so firmly established his regiment, that he might without danger give fortune the defiance: yet see, a little cloud rising from the sea, did on the sudden so darken the Sunshine of his devices, that as one surprised with trembling fear, and wielded in an endless Labyrinth, he sound no issue to wade through, but was affrighted with guilty suspicion by day, and terrified with fearful visions by night: neither felt he any release until death hastened to demand his right, & to take just revenge upon him. Who, though he were a king, yet being slain in the field was disarrayed of his armour & robes, & stripped naked was thrown overthwart a horseback with his face groveling to the earth: and so besmeared with mire and gore was hurried from Bosworth to Leicester: & there in stead of funeral solemnities, he had black fame for his herald: shame for his shrouding sheet: & never dying obloquy for his sepulchre. Neither were the executioners of his commands exempted from penalty. For Sir james Tarrell (who was by him advanced for the murder of the young king, his nephew) was in the reign of king Henry the seventh beheaded at the Tower hill for treason. 
A vicious life endeth seldom with a happy heath.  Miles Forrest piecemeal rotted away. john Dightons death, though it be not certainly specified, yet we may without any breach of charity suppose, the it was not greatly discrepant from the former course of his life.  
And no marvel if the Lord of hosts be so jealous over his Vicegerent, & pour out such rigorous punishments upon archtraitors conspiring against his anointed, seeing he suffereth not petty treacheries, though in degree far inferior, to escape unrevenged. As may appear by Henry Banester servant to the Duke of Buckingham: who though he were brought up under the Duke, & had from him received many benefits: yet at such time as the Duke being encountered with great extremities, and on every side marvelously distressed, committed his life to Banesters' secrecy, thinking it the safest refuge and sanctuary that he could repair unto: Banester in expectation of the reward that was promised by proelamation to him that could discover him, readily condescended to befraie his Lord. But shortly after it came to pass the his son and heir fell mad & died in a Boar's sty: his eldest daughter was stricken with leprosy: his second son was taken lame, & his youngest son drowned in a puddle: & lastly Banester himself was arraigned for murder, and with much ado escaping, was frustrated of that golden recompense which he preferred before his Lord's life, and his own reputation. I speak not this to patronage the Duke's action, the equity of whose cause I refer to the censure of the wise, but seeing all deeds are to be measured by the intent of the doer, and the sequel of the fact, needs must he be noted for a faithless caitiff that began his action in wretched avarice, and ended it in shameful misery. If I should draw these and such like particulars into the form of an induction, and thereupon grounding a general conclusion should say, that never traitor to his prince achieved happy and prosperous end, I think it would be hard for you to give an instance to the contrary: unless haply you please to reply, by nominating any of the straggling extravagants, 
jesuits by profession are in condition Iscariotes.  that carrying the title of jesuits lead the lives of Iscariot's, and either by ranging abroad, or dissembling at home, chance to escape the whip. But they must imagine that forbearance is no quittance, and the longer they run on the score, the harder will the reckoning prove when it comes to payment. Howsoever one traitor list to descant upon the fall of another, imputing his overthrow to second causes, ascribing it to fatal influence, and angry stars: wresting it either to want of policy, or neglect of opportunity; or default of secrecy; or his too much carelessness, or his too little courage; and with these vain illustons flatter his conceit, hoping that he shall overleap that stumbling block whereat his fellow traitor broke his neck: though debating the matter with himself, he impart his purpose to no other: yet may he be sure, that he whose eyes are as flames of fire: who searcheth the heart, and the reins: who bringeth light out of darkness: to whom darkness is no darkness, but the night is as clear as the day: he may be sure (I say) that he both can & will at his good pleasure bewray him for the upholding of his glory, and maintenance of his anointed. Therefore if I may either command as a mother, or entreat as a friend, or avuise as a well willer; if either the declining course of my years may plead pity, or the sincerity of my meaning gains credit, or my experience in miseries give direction; let these words, which my fainting breath and faltering tongue can scarcely utter, dehort you from prosecuting those villainies that ye have wickedly attempted, and forewarn you to avoid that peril ye have desperately incurred.  
If I should recount the benefits that from time to time I have over prodigally bestowed upon you, I doubt I should sooner weary myself with the rehearsal, then breed in you any thankful acknowledgement of the same. 
Est aliqua ingrato meritum exprobrare voluptas.  Yet because it somewhat easeth the stomach, to exprobrate to ungrateful persous good turns past; I must affirm that which you can not deny, that since Brute first set foot within my shore, I never was endowed with so bountiful blessings, never more decked with ornaments of peace, never less travailed with encumbrances of war: so that I may confidently avouch, that mercy & truth are met together; righteousness & peace have kissed each other: truth hath flourished out of the earth, & righteousness hath looked down from heaven. But if ye look a little abroad, ye may see others tossed in the raging tempests; whereas yourselves stand on the shore not threatened by any such jeopardy: you triumph in garlands of Olive, when your neighbours are constrained to wear the wreaths of Cypress: 
Deus nobis haec otia fecit.  and you may joyfully sing Te Deum in the highest note, when they (God knoweth) are feign to cry Miserere in a mournful voice. The nations round about you are infested with martial horror, with clattering of armour, with thundering of shot, with shréeking of women, wailing of children, slaughter of men, desolation of provinces, 
Amos. 6.  & infinite such spectacles of dread and terror. But you have stretched yourselves upon beds of ivory, ye have eat the lambs of the flock, & calves of the stall; ye have sung to the sound of the viol, & invented to yourselves instruments of music: ye have drunk your wine in bowls, and anointed yourselves with the costliest ointments: but who among you hath been sorry for the affliction of joseph? who hath called his imprisonment to remembrance? who among you hath not sought to throw him into the dungeon again? or which of you hath nor gone about to trouble Israel? and as ye have increased in iollitle, so have ye multiplied in transgression: 
Hosea. 4.  therefore will the Lord turn your glory into shame. Ye have covertly girded your loins with the weapons of war in the time of peace, intending if opportunity had served your purpose, 
2. Sim. 3.  to do to your brethren as joab did to Abner, when he flatteringly embraced him with the one hand, & cruelly with the other gave him his deaths wound. Ye have perverted the course of nature in causing troublsom storms to arise in the golden days of the halcyon. In deed I confess it is an impossible thing that light should make agreement with darkness, or truth have society with error. The mortal hatred & unappeased contention, 
Genes. 25.  that ensued betwixt jacob & Esau was not obscurely prognostieated at their nativity, when they strove and wrestled together in Rebeccaes womb, to the great discomfort of her soul. The rooted enmity that you carry against the professors of the Gospel, 
The coals of hatred that Papists rake by in their brells must needs vent 〈…〉 the smoke of slanderous reports  howsoever it be raked up in the deceitful cinders of counterfeit amity, yet doth it so vehemently strive to burst out, that if it should not find a loverhole and place of vent to issue forth by the smoke of slanderous reports & fabulous rumours (which are commonly coined for the nourishing of discouragement and false suspicions in true subjects hearts) it would so scald and blister your lips, that by the same as by a certain cognisance we might descry you. In your hearts you ever follow the fashion of the Swallow, that delights to fly against the wind: in your speeches you play the Lapwing, that flickereth a lose in a place some what distant from her nest, to withdraw the passengers thence.  
The Poets pleasantly devise that when jupiter had made man, glorying in the workmanship thereof, he brought him to find-fault Momus, and demanded what he could espy in him worthy reprehension: Momus commended the orderly feature and seemly disposition of the lineaments: but one thing (saith he) I greatly dislike, that thou hast forgotten to frame a window in his breast, whereby it might be known whether his heart and his tongue went together or not. If the consciences of traitorous Papists might be as thoroughly ransacked, and as deeply sounded, as they may be justly doubted, there would be found cakes of foul cankered malice, & long festered choler buried under painted hoods, & mealemouthed protestations. Then would the grutching & murmurings of Esau come to light, 
Genes. 27.  who threatened to slay his brother jacob after the days of mourning were finished. But take ye heed to yourselves, lest the mischief ye intent against others, be in the end derived upon your own pates. For it often times cometh to pass that God snareth the wicked in their proper inventions, and punisheth them by the same means whereby they offend. Thomyris queen of Scythia, after she had vanquished Cyrus, smote off his head, and threw it into a vessel of blood, saying: Now drink thou blood thy belly full, which thou hast hitherto so much thirsted after. Crassus' being slain in the expedition against the Parthians, they took melted gold and poured it into his mouth, saying: Now glut and accloie thyself with gold, 
judic. 1.  wherewith thy unstaunched hunger was never yet satisfied. And when the Israelites had taken Adonibezek, they cut off the thumbs of his hands, and the great toes of his feet: whereupon he confessed, saying: seventy kings having the thumbs of their hands and of their feet cut off, gathered bread under my table: as I have done, so God hath rewarded me.  
Your desire is to erect a fresh the pageant of papistry; and for the compassing thereof, ye are willing, not only to contribute your bracelets & earrings to the making of the golden calf, 
Exod. ●●.  as the idolatrous childrent of Israel did: but ready also to offer your sons in sacrifice, as the unnatural king of Moab did, 
2. Reg 3.  to pacify his incensed Gods: nay, 
The Papists are content to hazard their lives for the restoring of the romish Religion.  contented to make your own lives a prate as the Athenians did, when they accorded by casting of lots to surrender themselves to be devoured of that hideous monster Minotaurus. Those among you that have rotten in the corruption, and wallowed in the filthiness of their opinions, longing with the dog to return to their old vomit, deserve to be laughed at for their madness: concerning whom we may cry out with the Prophet: Is there no balm at Gilead? 
jerem. 8.  is there no Physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people healed? And those may be compared to the Scarabie, which being bred in the dunghill prospereth there exceeding well: but if she happen to settle under the rose tree, she dieth incontinently. The other that never saw papistry in his highest ruff, but through the seducing of their old masters, have been brought to the bent of their bow, are to be pitied for their folly: of whom we may say with the Orator, that they may seem to have sucked error out of their Nurse's breasts with the very milk of their infancy; and these are like the foolish fly that dallieth so long with the candle, till she singe her wings in the flame: these play as did the fond Satire, who espying the fire that Prometheus first brought down from heaven, would needs kiss it because it glistered in his eyes. Both these sorts jointly considered, resemble that sottish Grillus; who, when he with the rest of his companions had by the politic and ingenious stratagem of Ulysses escaped from out the den of that deformed Ciclop Polyphemus, would needs have gone back, with the hazard of his life to have recovered his girdle that he left behind him. And being afterwards in the same voyage by the enchantments of Circe's changed into the form of an hog refused to return to the shape of a man. The pope is that monster and astonishment of nature, who hath so long enchained christian souls in miserable thraldom and more than Egyptian servitude, 
The Romish Religion more infected with errors than Augaeus stable was filled with ordure.  where they have continued locked up in his darksome dungeon as in the shadow of death: which is more replentisht with ordure than Augaeus stable, and therefore requireth a mightier and more puissant champion to purge it then Hercules was. He is that abominable strumpet that so long besotted the world with her witchcrafts and sorceries; that made The kings and inhabitants of the earth drunken with the wine of her fornication. 
Apocal. 17  But in the hand of the Lord there is a cup and the wine is red, it is full mixed, & he poureth out of the same: 
Psalm. 75.  surely all the wicked of the world shall wring out and drink the dregs thereof. If all the wicked shall drink of it, then of all the most wicked, in respect of whom jeroboam may be reputed for righteous, he, even he of all others the most wicked, shall have a large draft for his share, he shall turn off a full carouse.  
If ye would but fasten your eyes upon me a while, ye might in my forehead easily reads what would be your own destinies under his government. For though time hath healed the wounds with which he despitefully mangled my body yet the scars and blemishes remain still behind. My meaning is, there yet liveth many a one, whose father, mother, brother, sister, kinsman or friend, this savage Antichrist hath wrongfully murdered, & by untimelydeath abridged the date of their days; confiscating their goods, and leaving their posterity not only fatherless children, but also comfortless orphans. When I look back to the calamity of those times, I feel my poor heart begin to resolve into streams of blood, & mine eyes melt into floods of tears, at the only remembrance thereof; even as the carcase of a murdered man gusheth forth into bleeding at the presence of the murderer. Hercules when he came up from hell, looking back at the wonderful dangers that he had waded through, shook for joy. And how can I but rejoice with trembling before my Lord God, who hath taken off my purple garment, and clothed me with a white rob; who hath wiped away the tears from mine eyes, and crowned me with joy and gladness? Therefore blessed be my Lord the hath greeted his spouse with this consolation: Behold winter is past, 
Cant. 2.  the storm is blown over, & gone away. Yea, for ever magnified he his name that hath respected the lowly essate of his handmaid. How might I now express the moiety of grief that I then felt when my bosom was bedewed with the warim blood of guiltless martyrs? when reverent old age wanted due obsequies? 
These things are too true to be denied, and to apparent to be dissembled.  when flowering youth was causeless cropped in his prime? when woman's weakness was not spared, no, not the woman with child? but (O more than barbarous cruelty) when the infant springing out of the mother's womb was thrown again into the fire? what should I speak of burning the hands of persons uncondemned? or of privy slaughters committed in prisons? seeing to the former example I doubt whether Phalaris hunself (if he had then lived) could have added ame thing for the aggravating of their tyranny. Think with yourselves how I groaned under the importable weight of so lamentable distresses: which if they did then craze my heart, they would now force it to break in sunder.  
But (as Capnio said) quum duplicarentur lateres, tum venit Moses: when Pharaoh caused the task of brick to be doubled, then came Moses. And when burdens begin to grow overgrievous, then ariseth up deliverance. When the Philistines offered sacrifice to their God Dagon, 
judic. 16.  scoffing and insulting at the misery of Samson, whose eyes they had before bored out, then was their comical pastime interturbed with a tragical conclusion: the house came tumbling on their heads, & God made him their scourge whom they made their game. 
Proverb. 16.  For pride goeth before destruction and a high mind before a fall: 
Luc. 18.  and could it be that God should not avenge his elect which cried day and night unto him, yea, though he suffered them long?  
When Nessus the Centaur intending to ravish Dianeira, had received his deaths wound for his hire at Hercules hand, he then besought her of pardon, and making semblance of great sorrow, he gave her of his blood, enjoining her to reserve it as a rare monument and rich treasure, the virtue whereof he said was invaluable: for thereby she might at her pleasure reclaim the wandering affection of her husband, if he should chance at any time through distoialtie to estrange himself from her company. Of which thing she afterward making trial, washed his shirt in the blood, which so soon as he had at unawares put on, he was therewith poisoned. In like case the Pope endeavouring to despoil the Church of England of her dignities by incrochement and intrusion; and to curtal the prerogative of the royal state by usurpation: had in a happy hour both the check and the mate given him; whereupon he almost in utter despair of filling up so great a breach, hath scattered abroad his lying spirits to inveigle our malcontent romanists, to revolt from obeisance, warranting them by force of his absolution, as by Nessus' blood, to rectify all imaginary and supposed injuries, wherewith they shall find themselves never so little aggrieved: and thus do they (you I mean) practise to execute this devise: but (thanks be given to our merciful God) to your own subversions. The differences are: what Dianeira did was upon ignorant zeal: what you do is upon pestilent rancour. Hercules embraced strange love contrary to duty: but her Majesty tendereth you far above your deserts.  
But lest I might be thought to compose clamorous invectives against the Sea of Rome, not sufficiently poized with their just moments of reason; I will allege some specialties for the confirming of my assertion. As touching the scope of their doctrine, because it is a matter not wholly incident to the meanness of my caparitie, and somewhat without the compass of this discourse, I purposely relinquish it. Howbeit if I should descend to the discussing of particularities I could challenge him of many schismatical points built upon human tradition, and repugnant to the verity of holy Scriptures. For how hath he infersed his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to continue the wooden worshipping of images? to the which I may (not unfitly) apply the poetical Irony, which is used against the Egyptians that adored Onions and Garlic, as the Papists do trees and stocks: 
O sanctae gentes quibus innascuntur in hortis Numina.  
O holy people they whose Gods  
Within their Gardens grow.   
How hath he multiplied Mediators, making some of salvation, others of intercession; derogating from the office of Christ, to maintain the invocation of Saints? whereas the Scripture precisely designeth one, saying: There is one God, 
1. Tim. 2.  and one mediator between God and man, which is the man jesus Christ. How hath he foisted in his distinction of mortal and venial sins, to prop his Purgatory that is now so ruinous for lack of reparation? We are taught in God's word, that all sins are venial in Christ, except the sin against the holy Ghost: (which is therefore called of Saint john, 
1. john. 5. Rom. 6. Marc. 3.  a sin unto death) and all mortal in their own nature. For the wages of sin is death. And, all sins shallbe forgiven unto the children of men, and blasphemies wherewith they blaspheme: but he that blasphemeth against the holy Ghost, shall never have forgiveness, but is culpable of eternal damnation. These may serve to give you a taste, seeing it stands not with my purpose to frame any controversial treatise: but ye may guess the beast by his paw. In general this is to be observed in their doctrine, that they when they are had in chase, they have so many muces, inturnings: winding corners, and starting holes, that but for the track of their footing it were hard to overtake them. In their intricate sophisms & inexplicable quiddities, they play like the fish called the Cuttle, which when the fisherman is ready to lay hand upon her, casteth forth a slimis black humour like unto ink, which darkening the upper face of the water, causeth the fisherman to fail of his aim, and by that means she escapeth: and I may say of them as Cesar said of the Scythians whose manner it was to lurk in uncouth thickets: Difficilius est invenire, quàm superare: It is an harder matter to find them out then to overcome them.  
Touching his government, it is nothing else but a mighty faction of men, and armed power of Princes bending their forces directly against the Gospel of peace. How intolerable is his ambition that arrogateth to himself Universality, trusting to draw not only jordan like the Behemoth, but the four quarters of the world into his mouth? 
job. 40.  And yet behold his shameless hypocrisy, 
The Pores ambitious pride shadowed with a show of humility.  who claiming supreme jurisdiction in all causes, and throughout all Countries, yet vaileth bonnet, and abaseth his style calling himself servum servorum Dei. Of which dissembled humility this Distich was compiled, not altogether unworthy the rehearsal. 
Roma tibi quondam suberant Domini dominorum,  
servorum servi nunc tibi sunt Domini:  Which is 
Time was (O Rome) when Lords of Lords,  
to thee did beck and bow:  
Time's past: and servants servants are  
thy Lords and masters now.   
Hath he not always under a colour of piety and religion, broached most impious and least religious practices? So that long since the Germans perceiving his juggling, how he fostered contentions, cloaked murders winked at heresies, and dispensed with all crimes how capital so ever, if he might thereby either dilate his signories, or furnish his treasury, rejected his pretenced authority: and marking how outrageously he set up his bristles and whetted his tusks against such as crossed his devices, anathematising them with the horrible curse of Shimei, and rattling out his excommunications against them, they both sharply reproved and openly derided his Bulls before the which he was accustomed to prefix the name of the almighty, most blasphemously making it to lead the way to his devilish execrations: so that it became amongst them a common byword: In nomine Dei incipit omne malum: all mischief begins in God's name. And to glean a few ears out of a full sheaf, I will set down some several examples. In the time of Gregory the ninth, sprang up the division of the Guelphs and the Gibellines: the Guelfes bolstering out the swelling insolency of the Popedom, and the Gibellines assisting the just title of the imperial majesty. Through the which occasion, most tumultuous uproars and deadly wars were arreared: the fury whereof being scarce calmed & allayed within one hundred years after, hath left a perpetual memory to the world, 
How the fable of Elses & Goblins first came up.  by those terms of elves & goblins, that are at this day more generally known then rightly understood. During which faction Boniface the eight aspired to the Sea: who being maliciously inflamed against the families of Column and Ursini, because they favoured the Gibellines, wrought them all possible despite, in putting their bodies to the sword, their houses to the sack, and their goods to the spoil. And so irreconcilable was this his wrath that on Ash-wednesday when he sprinkled ashes on his cardinals heads, coming to Porcherus Archbishop of Genna, who was of the Gibellines, whereas he had used these words to the others: Memento homo quod cinis es, & in cinerem revertêris: That is; Remember man that thou art ashes and into ashes thou shalt return: 
Here was a hot stomach and cold devotion.  a sudden fit of cheler boiling in his stomach, caused him to forget the depth of his devotion, and alter the form of his speech; so that throwing the ashes into the Archbishop's face, he blustered out in these terms; Memento homo quod Gibellinus es, & cum Gibellinis moriêre: Remember fellow that thou art a Gibelline, and with the Gibellines thou shalt to the pot. Deus bone, tantaenè animis coelestibus irae? Good God, can holy heads harbour such rancorous hatred?  
How mischievously did Gregory the seventh conspire with the states of Saxony, against Henry the fourth Emperor of Germany, when commencing quarrel against him, he convented him of heresy, for bestowing ecclesiastical promotions upon persons both insufficient for their gifts, and defamed for their behaviours? and sentencing against him, he adjudged him to do daily penance at the Churche-dore of Peter and Paul, for the space of one whole year. Moreover he enforced him barefooted and bare-legged to creep to kiss his feet. And during this turmoil, he suborned Rodolphe Duke of Saxony to invade the Empire: whereof the Emperor being advertised, thought it was now high time to resist so dangerous a practice, and hasting into Germany he encountered Rodolphe, 
A guilty conscience is a biting corrosive.  and in five several battles discomfited him. Rodolphe shortly after lying on his death bed, was presented with his own hand that had been smitten off in fight. Which when he beheld, turning his face to the Bishops that stood about him, he said: This is the right hand, wherewith I vowed my faith to the Emperor; now is the same become a witness of my breach of fidelity, and traitorous attempts against my sovereign: chief by your, even by your instigation and procurement, my Lords. If I might without offence spur the Pope a question, I would feign know whether S. Peter's keys hang (as he saith) at his girdle for that end to bar the gates of unity, and open the doors of dissension? If there be a blessing laid up in store for the peacemakers, let him tell me what shallbe the reward of such as kindle coals of mutiny and sedition? Especially seeing he is in double fault that giveth offence by his example. Was not the presumption of Alexander the third unmeasurable, and the pride Lucifer-like, that he exercised against the Emperor Frederick, surnamed Barbarossa, upon whose back when he had set the states of Italy and Venice, and also captivated Otto the emperors son, working upon this advantage he constrained him to yield to such unreasonable conditions, as better agreed with his impudent and vainglorious nature to demand, then with Frederick'S magnanimity to condescend unto. So that he was driven to prostrate himself in Venice at the Pope's feet; and yet he not contented with this, more than humble submission, contumeliously trod upon his neck, abusing that text of scripture: 
Psalm. 91.  Super Aspidem & Basiliscum, etc. Thou shalt walk upon the Adder and the Basilisk, the young Lion and the Dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet. The Emperor seeing himself so disdainfully overcrowed by a dunghill craven, could not suppress his heroical stomach, but answered again; Non tibi sed Petro: I do this in reverence of Peter, and not for fear of thee. Whereat the Pope raving, with open mouth intercepted his words exclaiming, Et mihi & Petro: thou shalt dos this reverence both to Peter and me. This ruffling champion was (no doubt) profoundly instructed in the school of Christ; 
Mat. 12.  whose lowliness was such that he broke not the bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flax: he reproved his Disciples, when they would have had fire to come down from heaven and consume the Samaritans, 
Luc. 11. Mat. 11. Christ's school is of humility: but the Pope may be turned out for a non proficient.  saying: Ye know not of what spirit ye are. He willed them to learn of him: For I am (saith he) lowly and meek: and so shall ye find rest to your souls. What should I rehearse the broils, wherewith Gregory the ninth pestered Fredrick the second? who for that in a cause which admitted no dilatory circumstance, but as it imported matter of singular consequence, so it required means of present expedition, for that (I say) he departed without taking solemn farewell & humble leave of the Pope's holiness, having levied a supply of soldiers to pass into Asia for rescuing of the distressed Christians in their wars against the Saracens, he was retracted by the Pope's countermand, that he sent to the Christian army straightly interdicting them to follow the Emperors conduct: neither could he by any intercession obtain release, until he had thrown a honey sop into Corberus jaws, and stopped the Pope's mouth with payment of an hundred and twenty thousand ounces of gold.  
These things being so plain that they can not be overshadowed with any pretence, me thinks the painter's answer was reasonably framed, that he made in defence of his workmanship: who being checked because he dad drawn the counterfeit of S. Peter too high coloured, whom they affirmed to have been of pale countenance, foreworne with careful vigilancy and painful travail, which he always took about his pastoral affairs & Apostolical negotiations: I have (said he) made him not as he was on earth, but as he is now in heaven: from whence looking down into the lives of his successors, he blusheth for shame to see their shameless misdemeanour. And as the Pope hath in other countries played his vagaries, to the disturbance of public unity and racking of common wealths by pillage & extortion: so hath he vexed me with violent turmoils & chargeable impositions to my no small grief, and no less detriment. I can not yet forget the dealing of that greedy cormorant, and sweeting Bull of Basan, 
A last of the Pope's practice here in England.  whom I lastly recited, who in the reign of king Henry the third, sent over his Legate, rent-gatherer, or caterpillar, to purloin from me of every Church throughout the Realm a yearly revenue of four marks: the which to what sum it amounteth I refer to your consideration. His letters mandatory were delivered into the hands of the Archbishops & Bishops for assisting of the Legate in his collection: enjoining them withal to provide three hundred of the best benefices, to be employed upon three hundred Italians at his appointment. Was not this to charge them to rend the fleeces from off their own backs, for the covering of his filthiness? The king being certified of the matter calleth a Synod of Bishops, and causing conference to be had in their convocation house, 
The king of England's care for the welfare of his Realm and subjects.  he thereupon addresseth his letters to the Pope, in his own name, and in the behalf of his subjects. But when he saw his travel bestowed this way to be frustrate, he imparted the matter to his Lords assembled in Parliament, discoursing what inconveniences must of necessity ensue, if they obeyed the Pope's precept: and in most earnest and discrete manner he debateth the cause severally with every particular Bishop, willing them to wean their affection from strangers, and not practise the undoing of their native country for gratifying of the Pope. But finding them perverse he mingleth his entreaty with menaces, denouncing openly against them the penalties of the laws and ancient statutes of his Realm: charging them further upon their allegiance to deliver no money out of the Realm to the beggaring of the State. They (as best became them) yielded at the last, obedience to their Liege Lord.  
But Gregory thus defeated of his purpose and crossed with a contrary cue, clean beside his expectation, began to make battery with his gun-shot of excommunication, directed to the Bishop of Worcester, of whose inclination he was best persuaded, with command to prosecute it in most vehement sort, that no possible furtherance should be omitted for the effectuating thereof against a certain day prescribed, wherein the Audit of this sacred receit must be given up. The matter was so diligently traversed, what with the kings Ambassadors on the one side, to appease the Pope; what with the insatiable covetousness of the Pope on the otherside to impoverish the Realm, that notwithstanding all importunity, submission and reasonable proffers that the king could make, no speech of reconcilement would be hearkened unto, until he had granted the Pope a tenth of all goods movable in England and Scotland: 
The king in his own Realm over-waighed by the usurped authority of the Pope.  and then (to use Matthaeus Parisiensis his own words) Our Lord the Pope being before inwardly inflamed above all things to suppress the haughtiness of the king, recomforted with these promises, was made to consent. The which how pernicious it became to the state of this Realm can hardly by any estimate be comprehended. For irregular custom having once set in his foot, would not for many years after take the repulse. So that the Church of Rome hath to her shame approved the verity of this saying; Religio peperit Divitias; sed Filia devoravit Matrem: Religion brought forth Riches; but the Daughter swallowed up the Mother, like the Viper's brood. Such gourmandisers as pray upon Princes, whereas they ought of duty to pray for them, will be found to have run far into arrearages, when it shall be said unto them, Give account of thy stewardship, for thou mayst be no longer Steward. Of such it may be said, as Alcibiades said to Pericles, when he perceived him very careful to make up his reckonings to the Athenians; O how much better were it for thee, if thou couldst devise to give no accounts at all. 
The king of England's Exchequer disfurnished under pretence of ransoming the Pope.  It is not unknown how the treasure of this realm was of late years transported, when that ambitious Prelate Cardinal Woolsey conveyed at one time out of the kings Exchequer two hundred and forty thousand pounds sterling, for relieving of Pope Clement, whom the Duke of Bourbon after the sacking of Rome, drew forth of the Castle of Saint Angelo, and detained him prisoner in the emperors army. The which sums of money he converted to furnish the french King with necessaries to make war upon the Emperor, who was then in league with King Henry of England.  
What should I speak of pardons, peterpence, with a number such polling & peddling devices of oppression whereof the manifestation of the Gospel hath clearly disburdened you? What should I declare how licentiously he hath presumed to control the mighty kings of England, infringing their liberties, abrogating their ordinances, repealing their statutes, and ingrating upon their prerogatives? Wherein if he were at any time gainsaid or overthwarted, he then cast about to depose them. As, Henry the second was suspended from his Crown by the space of four days; went barefoot to Thomas Beckets' Tomb dying the rough stones with his blood: and most unkingly dejecting himself to be discipled with the rod, of the Monks of Canterbury. King john was miserably vexed by Innocent the third, forced at last to resign his Crown with all title of sovereignty both in England and Ireland into Pandulphus hand, who detaining it five days, than restored it. This infortunate King after a troublesome and litigious reign was in the end poisoned by a traitorous monk; as also Henry the seventh Emperor of Germany was by a Dominicane Friar, who ministering the sacrament unto him, had before dipped the host in poison. I must needs highly commend the courage of king Henry the first, 
The magnanimity of king Henry the first, in withstanding the Hope.  who being in contention with Anselme about investitures, pleaded the sufficiency of his own authority within his proper territories, saying; There is an ancient custom of my kingdom ordained by my Father, that no person shall sue any appeal from us to the Pope: whosoever will attempt to violate this custom, doth offend against our Majesty, and the Crown of England: he that will seek to despoil us of our Crown, is an enemy, and a Traitor to our person. And again, when Anselme would have had him follow the Pope's Letters: what have I to do with the Pope's Letters, I will not break the laws of my Realm for the pleasure of any Pope.  
As touching his market-making and whole sale of spiritual promotions to raw and bankrupt chapmen, it was truly said that the state of Asses was much better than of Horses; because the Horses were feign to post to Rome for benefices, but the Asses obtained them. Of his ordinary absolution for money without respect of crime, he descanted prettily that said, Friars were fed fat with men's sins. Of the schisms in his Sea, he spoke rightly, the being asked why in their suffrages they prayed not for Cardinals & Bishops, that is (quoth he) understood where we say, Oremus pro scismaticis & haereticis; let us pray for schismatics & heretics. I omit his beastly gain raked out of the sinkhole of brothelhouses. I loath to think upon his tolerating of the most stinking sin of abominable Sodomitry: in commendation whereof john Casus Archbishop of Beneventane, the Pope's Legate to the Venetians wrote a book. O detestable impudency, to magnify that in words, yea in writing, the only thought whereof woundeth the heart with horror. Indeed Sinesius wrote a pamphlet in praise of Baldness: Favorinus commended the quartan ague: Apuleus the Ass: Erasmus not unwittily blazed the praise of Follie: & one of late painted out the praise of nothing, yet to some purpose: but what age ever hatched such a forlorn monster as this? Yet was he a devout Catholic, a Romish Prelate, and one of special account with his holiness: therefore I mate well think like master like man: But room now, else shall we bring all Rome on our back: for the Pope sits in S. Peter's Chair forsooth. Why, so did the Scribes and pharisees in Moses seat: yet no into the holier men for that. So that I may justly say of him, as Themistocles said to a certain odd Seriphian, who objected to Themistocles that his renown arose more through the glory of his country, then by the merit of his virtues: Not so: said Themistocles: for if I were a Seriphian I would not live without honour: and though thou were an Athenian thou couldst not live without shame. So, if Saint Peter were at Rome, 
It is an odious comparison betwixt S. Peter, and the Pope.  he lived not like the Pope: and if the Pope sit in Saint Peter's Chair, yet he lives not like Saint Peter. Yet dare his blind bold bayards make comparison, and cast him their gauntlet that will avouch the contrary. For they affirm his integrity of life to be unspotted, and the sincerity of his doctrine uncorrupted. They will say Saint Peter wrought miracles: I cannot deny it: and to countervail that the Pope speaks Oracles: I dare not believe it: and they cannot prove it. But I jump in opinion with him, who answered, when as the Pope vainly vaunted of his heaps of gold, saying: I cannot say as S. Peter did, gold and silver have I none: No (said the other) nor you cannot do as S. Peter did, cause the lame to arise and walk. But as Neanthus having got Orpheus' harp went about jangling and jarring so long, that whereas he expected the trees should have danced after his pipe, he brought the dogs about his ears: so the Pope hath so long boasted of Peter's succession, that the simplest discern his doubling, & he that hath but half an eye may find out his gross juggling, & legerdemain. Yea, God hath raised up divers of his own part, to publish his dealings, who if they should all have held their peace, the very stones would have cried out for the displaying of the same. I will not wade any farther in recounting the actions of holy Father Pope, & holy mother Church, being matter so tedious for the length, and for the beastliness so loathsome; but will knit it up with this conceited Pasquine: 
Roma quid est? amor est. qualis? praeposterus. unde hoc?  
Romamares. Noli dicere plura, scio.   
And yet behold, your restless and reckless desire longeth and laboureth to inthronize this bloodsucking Cannibal, this broacher of quarrels, this patron of heresies, this robber of churches, this controller of Princes, this enemy of Christ. 
Both the means and the end of alteration are matters of exceeding mischief and extreme folly.  Neither are the means whereby ye would plant him any less pestilent, than the end wherefore. Invasion of the Spaniard is the means; advancing of Papistry is the end. It is a common saying, He blames Neptune without cause, that having once made shipwreck, will to sea the second time. You have had already some experience of the Spaniards disposition among yourselves, and may elsewhere take perfitter notice. So that in this your intent I cannot more aptly compare you then to a fool that laugheth and maketh semblance of mirth when he goeth to the stocks to be punished for his folly. But if it be a point of wisdom for a man to look to his own house when he seethe his neighbour's roof on fire, than first learn that point, least in neglecting it ye oversee the best point in your tables. What the Spaniard hath attempted in the low countries, is better known than I am able to report: and what he had attained ere this, may partly be conjectured, if God had not moved her majesties mind, and strengthened her hand to bridle his tyrannies, to secure their distresses, and support his own truth. Consider what he hath done in the kingdom of Naples and in the Indies, and trust him accordingly. When Naples came to his hands, it had in it ten Princes, nine chief Officers, nineteen Dukes, one & twenty Marquises, three & thirty Earls, beside of Barons and Lords a great number. He obtained it by a pretenced title of marriage, after it had been defended a long time against the Emperor by Francis the french king: under whose regiment the people had retained their accustomed franchises & liberties. 
How the king of Spain came to ●●●y the realm of Naples.  But when the french king was taken prisoner at Pavia, one condition of his delivery was, that he should from thence forward withdraw his forces out of the kingdom of Naples: by which means it came to the king of Spain's possession. The Spaniards at their first coming showed themselves most pliable in their behaviours, promising golden mountains, & vowing all service to the Neapolitans for the defence of their country & continuance of their freedoms. And thus by cloaked amity they crept into credit: so that divers of the chief of them were employed in the strongest fortresses, & best fenced castles in the country. The king of Spain to curry favour with them and to rock suspicion a sleep, appointed the Prince of Salerne their own countryman to be his Lieutenant. During the while he was sole governor they enjoyed all benefits that they had afore time. Not long after he sent thither one Don Pietro a Spaniard, whom he joined in commission with the Prince. This fellow sought by raising false reports of the Prince to discredit him with the king and commons: and by indirect practices to endanger his life. Which when the Prince saw, he willingly sequestered himself departing to his castle, & left all affairs to be ordered by Don Pietro. The Spaniard not thus contented contrived matter of accusation against the Prince, charging him with treason: whereto he refused not to make his answer. Which when he came to have done, the Spaniard had suborned a villain privily to lurk in the mountains to have murdered him with a gun, who missing his body struck him in the leg. The Prince seeing himself environed with manifest peril, took his way to Venice: upon whose departure the Spaniard immediately proclaimed him traitor. The prince framed his complaint to the king, but found no remedy. Not only was the offendor released from sentence of law: but all inborn subjects of the realm were discharged from bearing rule or office whatsoever. All Merchants and artificers were prohibited to keep any kind of armour or weapon in their houses: yea, so much as sword or dagger. Only to gentlemen it was permitted to have their swords & targets & none other. If all payments which all the kings the reigned before in Naples were laid together, they are not comparable to th'extraordinary taxes the king of Spain hath exacted of them. 
The grievous exactions raised upon the Neapolitans.  Every fourth or fift year they paid sometime two hundred thousand, sometime four▪ & sometime a million of gold. All such as had lands were called to know by what title they kept them: if they had not evidence presently to show, they were defeated, though they were able to declare their possession of an hundred or two hundred years. Again, all such, as either themselves or their ancestors had born any kind of magistracy, were called to account, & notwithstanding they had been cleared many years before by receiving their quietus est: yet if the quittance were lost by reason of time, they were condemned to repay the whole. I might make special relation of all accises, customs, & exactions, that he imposeth upon all manuary trades & mechanical faculties: upon all commodities the may any way grow to the inhabitants: but they would require a large treatise. But think to what an huge mass of money it amounteth when the Farmar of the butchery and poultry of the city of Naples payeth daily three hundred ducats: when vittailers pay five ducats for yearly obedience: shoemakers one french crown: filkemakers five: when for every chimney he hath six shillings thréepences: of every strumpet or courtesan three shillings penny half penny, and of all others in proportion. Every head of great cattle payeth three Cavalluchis (of the which, fourteen or fifteen make a penny) every head of small payeth two: and (as it is credibly recorded) that tax in one year, only in two shires Apulia & Calabria came to four hundred thousand french crowns sterling: and there followed the next year after, a tax of six hundred thousand french crowns. We use to say, where nothing is to be had the king looseth his right. But the Spaniard though he make his gain his right, and his will his law: though he have brought the people to a low ebb & a miserable state, yet will he have what taxes soever he list to levy, though he rake it out of their bowels, and pull their skins over their ears for it.  
These are his practices in Naples: 
The cruelty of the Spaniards in the Indies.  but the execrable tyrannies which the Spaniards have showed on the Indians, as they do almost surmount credit, so can they hardly be furnished with terms effectual to decipher them. They have dispeopled in India more than ten realms, greater than all Spain, Arragon, & Portugal: which now remain as a wilderness abandoned & desolate, being before as populous as was possible. Within the space of forty years, they as in a common butchery slaughtered of innocent lambs, above twelve millions, men, women, & children. At their first arrival they were entertained with performance of all serviceable courtesies, the Indians most humbly submitting themselves unto them, & after a sort adoring them as divine creatures descended from heaven: but after they were too well acquainted with their savage cruelties, they fled from them as from hateful furies broke lose out of hell. 
The Spaniards made it a sport to murder the Indians.  The Spaniards customarily disported themselves in laying of wagers which of them should with one thrust of a sword paunch or bowel an Indian bravest in the midst: or with one blow most deliverly strike off his head: or best dismember him with one stroke. They used to mutrher the lords & nobility, by broiling them on gredirons with a soft fire underneath, that yelling and despairing in those lingering torments they might so give up the ghost. Four or five of the Lords on a time being roasted on this manner, with their pitiful roaring and lamentation disquieted the Captain (the caitiff I should say) and broke his sleep: whereupon for his better quiet he commanded them to be strangled: 
This Perillus wanted but a Phalaris to serve him of the same sauce.  the Sergeant would not suffer them to die so easy a death: but himself putting bullets in their mouth to the end they should not cry, roasted them softly after his desire. If at any time by due order and formal process of law, a malefactor being a Spaniard were put to death by the Indians, the Spaniards ordained a decree among themselves, that for one Spaniard they were to flay an hundred Indians. A certain Indian Lord flying from out the isle Hispaniola into the isle Cuba, was by the Spaniards so continually pursued, that at last they apprehended him, and burned him with the rest of his company. When he was bound to the stake, a Franciscan Friar began to common with him touching the knowledge of God & principles of Christian faith. Which things albeit the noble man had never heard of before, yet he gave good ear to the Friar who was earnest to persuade him the if he believed those matters wherein he instructed him, he should go to heaven to enjoy everlasting happiness: otherwise, there was no way but to hell with him to endure perpetual torments. The L. somewhat pausing at the matter demanded of the religious, whether the Spaniards went. To heaven without question, said the Friar, because they die in the Catholic faith: the L. hearing him say so, 
The Indian though it better to be in hell then to live with the Spaniards.  answered immediately without any further deliberation, that he would not go to heaven, because he would not come in place where Spaniards were, nor have society with a nation so cruel. When a certain tyrannical governor entered upon the firm land, a Lord of the country to gain his good will and to avoid torture, presented him with the weight of nine thousand Ducats. The Spaniards thinking to wring out of him an ample booty by compulsion, who of his voluntary accord had made so large a proffer, laid hold on him, fastened him to a stake, and setting him on the earth with his feet stretched out, put fire thereto, to make him bring forth more treasure. The L. sent to his house, and caused three thousand Castillans more to be brought and delivered to them. They not yet satisfied gave him the torments a fresh: not ceasing to fry his feet at the fire, till the sinews braced and the marrow spange forth, trilling down to the soles of his feet: so that of the same cruelty he died.  
Another monster after he had wrought a most bloody massacre upon divers Lords and other Indians, out of whose hands one noble man with his retinue to the number of thirty or forty had escaped, & enclosed themselves within a temple, the spaniard following after them, neither weighed the reverence of the place, nor the innocence of the persons, but devoid of all humanity & compassion, set fire on the temple & so burned them. Himself in the mean while used like gesture & behaviour, as did Nero when he had caused Rome to be fired, & he beholding it sat singing & playing on his harp. This tyrant passed on to Mexico trampling in human blood. Motenzuma king of Mexico being advertised of his coming sent a thousand presents to welcome him, 
Corpora magnanimo satis est. etc.  & met him at the bars of the city attended on with an honourable troup of nobles: but that same day by a devilish Spanish subtlety they got the king into their hands & then loaded him with bolts & gives. The Indians though they were greatly aggrieved at the wrongful imprisonment of their king, yet because he had given them strait commandment that they should not seek to revenge the despite, they endeavoured themselves with pageants, dancings and such pastimes, as they could best devise to recomfort their captive king, assembling as nigh the house where their king was as they could. Besides the flower of their nobility gathered together in a place adjoining to the walls of the palace where Motensuma was, under show of feigned mirth hiding sad hearts & heavy chéeres. The Spaniard purposing to strike a terror into the inhabitants bordering & confining thereby, determined to publish a frightful spectacle: and gave his hellhounds charge that at an appointed hour they should set upon them, 
The Indians lamentation for the merciless cruelties of the Spaniards at Mexico  and siue the young gentlemen being above two thousand, and slew the rest with an horrible slaughter. The Indians are wont in doleful manner to bewail & deplore the outrageous calamity of the day, especially the destruction of the offspring of their nobility, in whom their joy & glory did principally consist. This devil incarnate was accustomed when he went to make war on any City or province, to carry thither of the Indians yoked together an huge multitude, to fight against their neighbours & brethren, & allowing no sustenance to ten or twenty thousand the he led a long in his army, he licenced them to eat the Indians which they could take. So the he had in his camp an ordinary shambles of man's flesh, where before his face they killed & roasted children; they murdered men only to have from them their hands & their feet which they counted the daintiest morsels. Another villainy he used, which was to overcharge the miserable people with cumbersome burdens chaining them together by the necks; & when any happened for lack of meat, or length of journey, or excess of weight to faint or fall sick, because he would not stay to unlock the chain, for the speedier dispatch he cut off the head from the shoulders, so the head tumbled one way, & the body another. Thus many times of three or four thousand shear returned not to their houses six a live. The poor wretched creatures, when they were to go on these voyages in this manner, parting the one from the other they would say: In the places where we were wont to serve the Christians, howbeit we travailed sore, yet at the last we came home again to our houses, our wives, & our children; but now we go without hope ever to come back again to see them. What should I talk of eight hundred Indian souls partakers of reason given for one Mare? Or of their foraging with fierce mankind Mastiffs, hunting after men & women? From the which a seely woman seeing she could not escape, hanged herself, having tied at her foot her young babe of a year old: but by the time she was dead, the curs came & straightways devoured the infant. Another hunting abroad after Venison, & finding no game met with a woman, whom he bereft of her tender child: cut off first his arms, than his legs, casting them to his dogs for livery, and lastly threw the whole carcase among them.  
It is impossible for me to utter in words the merciless dealings of the Spaniards in the Indies, 
Non mihi si centum Dens or a sonanti● linguis Ingeniumque capax totumque Helicona dedisset, etc.  the ghastly remembrance whereof is able to daunt the stoutest courage. So that after this show it is altogether superfluous to bring upon the stage the wicked practices of the holy Inquisition, unless it were to fill up a room of impiety if any be vacant. Therefore only thus much, they greatly pretend supporting of the Catholic faith, but they wholly intent the multiplying of their private commodity: to whom I may apply the fable of the Lion, who being hurt by the Bull commanded all horned beasts presently to avoid the forest, upon pain of his displeasurs. Amongst the rest the made haste away, was a beast the had a bunch of flesh in his forehead: the For meeting him asked whether he posted so fast: he answered, good faith I neither justly know, nor greatly care, so I were once gone. Why so I pray thee? Tush, what a question is that? as if thou were ignorant of the late edict the Liou caused to be published, that no horned beast should remain within the wood. I know it well: but that is no reason why thou shouldest either flee or fear: for thine is no horn & therefore it concerns thee not. Marry, that is true: but yet if the Lion say it is an horn, in what case am I then? So he that comes within the claws of that holy Court, whatsoever his religion be, if his purse be well replenished, he shall either burn for an heretic, or pay well for the sagots. Whether he can say Shibboleth, or shibboleth it skilleth not: they will bear him down he is an Ephraimite. Such are the Spaniards, such are their fruits: fruits far worse than the fruits of Sodom. For they though beautiful in show, yet being handled fall to ashes, only to the deluding of him that would crop them: these glorious in appearance, but being touched turn to poison, even to the destroying of them that credit them. Are ye then so foolish to look for Grapes upon thorns, or Figs upon thistles? Do ye take pleasure in the sirens song? or pity of the Crocodiles tears? will ye follow the Hiaenas voice? or dare ye swallow a Spanish bait? Sic notus Ulysses? Know ye not an Eft from an Eel? Learn to answer them as the fox answered the sick old Lion, when he entreated him to enter into his den. Nay, saith the fox: 
— Name me vestigia terrent:  
Omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum.  
The tracks and footsteps that I spy  
make me suspect some train:  
Sith all look forward to thy den,  
but none look back again.   
Remember the reward the Sabines bestowed upon the damosel Tarpeia, 
A friendly caveat, to forewarn traitors from peril by the example of others.  when she in am of betraying the City of Rome into their hands, had demanded those things which they wore on their left arms: they granted, and after they had compassed their purpose, they performed their promise. But whereas she thought to have received their golden bracelets, she was overwhelmed and slain with their steel targets: both which things they carried on their left arms. The Spaniards are perfect in Gordians precept, who willeth, if thou wouldst have thine enemy flee, to make him a golden bridge to run over. The Spaniard knoweth that the readiest way to win a fort is to batter it with bullets of gold. He knoweth this; he useth this: too well he knoweth this to his advantage; too much he useth this; and too late he hath used it to my grief. It is a saying well known; Proditionem amo sed odi proditorem. Me thinks your dealings are lively described in the picture of Fury, who is painted with a sword in his hand, and for the impatient desire of revenge wherewith he is inflamed, desperately rusheth upon a javelin, slaying himself while he attempteth to annoy his adversary: ye are far more besotted than that foolish fellow that was content to forego one of his eyes, conditionally his companion might lose both. But if this that I have said do not alter your minds, I doubt whatsoever may be said will be insufficient. And therefore in respect of your obstinacy I am to wish that ye might be dealt withal as the eagle dealeth with her young ones, who tumbleth such out of her nest as can not steadfastly look against the sun beams: or that there were some devise for the riddance of traitorous papists out of the realm, like to that which king Edgar invented for the avoidance of wolves when he bound the Welshmen to pay their tribute with wolves skins.  
If haply your malady be past recovery, I will notwithstanding comfort myself by repeating the words which Mardocheus used, in a case that threatened as great extremity. When Haman had obtained of king Assuerus that all the jews within his Provinces should be destroyed, 
Ester. 4  
An example of singular comfort to all faithful subjects.  & had got the proscription confirmed under the kings seal manuel, Mardocheus being a jew, & uncle to queen Ester, certified her by the king's eunuchs of Hamans' proceedings, and sent her the copy of the commission, charging her to become petitioner and frame supplication to the king for her people. When Ester heard the words of Mardocheus she commanded the Eunuch to tell him, that the law was so: whosoever should come into the king's presence uncalled, must die, unless the king of his grace held forth his sceptre unto him: Now, saith she, I have not been called to the king these thirty days, which when Mardocheus understood, he returned her this answer: Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the kings house more than all the jews. For if thou holdest thy peace at this time, comfort & deliverance shall appear to the jews out of another place, but thou & thy father's house shall perish. And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time? So though you being animated through the Pope's absolution, and in hope of I know not what lordly preferments have agreed among yourselves to make away with such as shall not be found to have an Auemaria sticking betwixt their teeth, or an Agnus Dei couched in their bosom: yet because your rage is raised against the Lord, & your tumult ascended into his ears, I trust he will do to you & to your confederates as he did to proud Senacherih, put an hook into your nostrils and a bridle into your jaws. For as it was prophesied of Troy, that it should not be subdued so long as the Palladium, which fell down from heaven upon the walls thereof, remained within it: so I am assured that England shall have rest from all her enemies so long as God's holy word shallbe sincerely preached & diligently followed. 
Our sins the means to draw God's plagues upon us.  For there is nothing that can withdraw his blessings from us, or draw his punishments upon us, but our stiffnecked and uncircumcised hearts, which neither have thankfuly received his truth, nor yielded obedience unto the same. And were it not the there is a zealous Moses among us, whose prayers appear before the Lord as incense, & the lifting up of whose hands is as an evening sacrifice: 
1. Pet. 2.  were there not a just Loth who day by day vexeth his soul in seeing our unlawful deeds, & by continual intercession slaketh the heat of God's wrath: I fear me your ungodly purposes had ere this prevailed, & his heavy indignation consumed us. 
Exod. 17.  But whensoever Moses hands shall begin to ware weary: when Loath shall once departed out of Sodom, than I fear lest God lay the rains on your neck, and the yoke on ours: lest he grant unto you power to despoil, & allot unto us sudden destruction: then I fear least as the flood was in the spring of the year, and the burning of Sodom at the rising of the Sun: So I fear (I say) lest Gods coming unto us be in the winter of our faith, and the summer of our pride: and lest he thrust the sickle of his vengeance into the full harvest of our iniquities. Let us therefore learn to love him as a father: and let us not forget to fear him as a Lord. Let us not despise the riches of his bountifulness patience, and long sufferance: knowing that by the same he allureth and leadeth us on to repentance: the differing whereof is most dangerous, for so much as it is to be given of his mercy, & not commanded at our pleasure: Nam qui promittit poenitenti veniam, non promittit peccanti poenitentiam: He the promiseth pardon to him that repentes, doth not promise repentance to him the offends.  
As for you let this suffice, that there was a curse denounced against him, that should build up jericho again: that Achan, with his family, his cattle, his implements, and all that he had, was stoned and burnt in the valley of Anchor because he had taken a Babylonish garment, certain shikels of silver, and a wedge of gold, being excommunicate things, and hide them in his tent: & dare ye then shrine such abominations in your hearts? Surely I greatly doubt, the as the Lord plagued all Israel till they had punished Achan, so he will not leave to scourge us till we have rooted out all of achan's brood. The example of Tarquin in cutiing off the tops of the poppies was most happily imitated to the glory of God and benefit of the Realm: for by that means I trust the stalks will soon whither away. 
The Queen of Scots the root of infinite mischiefs.  But while the root remained whole, it nourished a great number of noisome and superfluous branches. Our malcontent Romanists were so affectionately devoted to the contriving of her contentment, as Aeolus was desirous to gratify juno when he said: Tuus, O Regina, quid optes 
Explorare labour: me jussa capessere fas est.  
To think the thing thou feign wouldst have,  
pertains (O Queen) to thee:  
But to perform what ere thou crave,  
that duty longs to me.   
Your villainies before their late discovery, seemed in your own conceits wellnigh to have attained the highest step of their perfection: so that if Sinon could have brought the horse within the gates of Troy, he should then have given the watchword to the Grecian Fleet hovering aloof at Tenedos. Then would it have been to late to have wished for Hector, when Politus should have been slain at the altar and sanctuary; when Cassandra should have been ravished in the temple; and Priamus murdered in his own Palace. O unspeakable grief! all these valefull calamities to have sprung from one Helena? How much better had it been that that Helena had never been borne? or being borne, a thousand times better, she should have been thrown into the midst of the sea with a millstone about her neck, then to have been the subject for so many tragedies. When jabin king of Canaan sought to oppress Israel by the hands of Sisera his captain; 
●udic. 4.  the Lord raised up Deborah and Barak to overthrow his power. But the mother of Sisera making just reckoning of victory, looked out at the window, and cried through the lattesse, why is his Chariot so long a coming? why tarry the wheels of his Chariot? have they not gotten, & now they divide the spoil? etc. The mother, sister, cousin, or friend of Sisera, or how soever she were allied unto him, looked, & long she looked; but in stead of Sisera, contrary to her hope, she saw jehu come to do justice. The Lord looked also down from heaven, he saw your devices: he liked them not, but laughed because he perceived your day was coming: yea, he looked long: at last he saw justice done, and it pleased him well. For my part I will ever pray, that I may rather bear the burden of Deborah's song, than the burden of Phineas wives sorrow. The song of the one was; So let all thine enemies perish O Lord: 
Sic 〈…〉 di●●● 〈◊〉. bethae mal● v●lunt.  but they that love him shallbe as the sun when he riseth in his might. The sorrow of the other was; The glory is departed from Israel for the Ark of the Lord is taken.;  
But because a live dog is more to be doubted then a dead Lion, I wish that all their lurking holes may be narrowly searched, and they ferreted out of their Conniburrowes, 
Psalm. 101.  where privily they lay wait for innocent blood. I pray God, her Majesty may perfilly learn David's song, 
Traitors presume upon her M●i●●●●●s mercy.  who said he would sing unto the Lord of mercy and judgement. Her clemency hath been most notoriously abused; the music had almost been marred, and all like to be brought into an unpleasant discord, while she harped so long upon one string. The servants of Benhadad king of Syria, 
1. Reg. 2●.  what injuries soever they had wrought Israel, yet when they were fallen into the lapse they comforted themselves with these words: Behold, we have heard say that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings; let us therefore put sackcloth about our loins, & ropes about our heads, and go to the king of Israel: it may be that he will save our lives. They stood upon what may be, and what he will do: not upon what must be, & what he ought to do; & thus they made mercy the groundwork of their mischief. But the king of Israel was reproved by the Prophet, who told him; because thou hast let go out of thy hands a man whom I appointed to die, thy life shall go for his life & thy people for his people. No less are those runagate ruffians to be regarded, who practise to steal away the hearts of the people, crying out with the black mouth of Rabsakeh: What say ye unto me, we trust in the Lord our God? 
Esay. 36.  Is not that he whose high places, & whose altars Ezechias took down? & am I come up without the Lord to this land? therefore let not Ezechias deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you. And as Artabanus king of the Persians answered the letters of Alexander emperor of Rome, saying: In stead of paper I assign him the field, a lance for the pen, blood for ink, & wounds for words: So these companions for disputations bring dispensations: for reasons treasons, arguing ab utili, and not ab honesto: concluding neither honestum nor utile: arming their religion with atheism: and supporting their faith by faithless treacheries. Yet when they are cut short by justice, 
Papists make treason the truit of conscience.  they wouldimpudently face out the matter, that they die for their conscience, whereas (God knoweth) their conscience was dead long before. But we may answer their great master, as king Richard the first did, when the Pope sent to him commanding him to release the Bishop of Beawois and his Archdeacon, whom he called his sons, being taken by Earl john the kings brother in the field, and by the king committed to prison, he sent to the Pope their complete armour, with this message, 
Genes. 37.  Vide an tunica filii tui sit an non: see whether this be thy sons coat, or not. Let the pope look whether his jesuits jet in the garments of godly Churchmen, or rather of roisting vagabonds: let him say if these be the doings of men that deal upon zealous conscience, or rather upon traitorous intent. These are they that by their whispering tales would put men in fear where there is no cause of fear: giving false fires, and striking up hot alarms, when there is neither shot nor soldier nigh hand, 
Papists endeavour to amaze men with causeless fear.  thinking to make men afraid of skarcrowes, of their own shadows, or rather of nothing at al. These are they that construe every accident that befalls to the advantage of their purpose, speaking as they would fain have it. These are they that use wicked consultation in holy places, profaning temples by their lewd conference, and making the house of prayer a den of thieves. In a Churchyard in Paris shortly after the bloody massacre sprung up a Palm tree: which the Papists strait interpreted to be a sign that the Protestants were fully vanquished, and the lot of victory fallen to their part. But it was indeed a true token, and Time which is Truths mother, hath proved it so to be, that howsoever they practised by violence to extirpate true professors, yet maugre their malice, his servants should flourish like the Palm tree, and that from their blood as from the ashes of the Phoenix should revive a glorious of spring. For the blood of Martyrs is the seed of the Church. And therefore as Alexander the great courageously answered, when his soldiers would have dissuaded him from going unto India because the image of Orpheus sweat: what? (quoth Alexander) doth Orpheus' sweat? then I know we shall make work for the Poets: so we, though, not Orpheus' image, but Orpheus' Ape, Neanthus whom I touched before; though (I say) the Pope sweat and swear, and take on as one of his predecessors did for his pie: yet we know that in mainetaining God's truth, & obeying our sovereign we shall do a work acceptable to him: but they and you, which do the contrary, will make work dangerous to your souls, damageable to your country, & only profitable for the hangman. I wish you better, & I would I might hope better of you; and when I see you begin to amend, then shall you see me leave off to mistrust. But though faintness now enforce me to shut up my complaint, yet until that time, neither can I be freed from fear, nor you cleared from suspicion.  
O Loving God, and most merciful Father, 
A prayer for the preservation of her majesty and continuance of the gospel.  who holdest in thy hand the hearts of all Princes, & turnest them which way standeth best with thy divine pleasure, we beseech thee so to order the thoughts of thy servant our dread sovereign, and so to dispose all her actions, that as a faithful handmaid, she may study to please thee, and as a careful nurse seek to cherish thy Church. And forasmuch as thy glory is chief showed by bringing to pass thy will through weak means & feeble instruments, assist her we pray thee with thy spirit, that being weak in herself she may be strengthened by thy arm, to confound all such as shall with Holofernes assault thy people. And as thou hast heretofore oftentimes redeemed her out of the mouth of the lion, so defend her still, that neither open force nor secret villainy at any time prevail against her. And seeing thesmall grain of thy Gospel which by her hand thou hast graciously sown amongst us in the field of thy Church, hath been so watered with the heavenly dew of thy blessing, that the birds come now & build in the branches thereof: and the slender vine that thou broughtest out of Egypt, and plantedst in this land, hath through thy goodness taken such root, that the mountains are now covered with the shadow of it, & the boughs thereof spread abroad like the goodly Cedar trees: we beseech thee to watch over it, that neither the Caterpillar which lurketh in corners consume it, nor the wild Boar out of the wood destroy it, but that being nourished by thee, it may grow up before thee, & bring forth fruit unto thee. Remember not our former iniquities, but let thy tender mercies prevent our imminent miseries. And as in the days of josua thou didst stay the sun in the firmament until thy people had clean vanquished their & thine enemies: so now maintain the throne of thine anointed, that her days may be as the days of heaven for brightness, and as that day of josua for continuance, that she may weed out the adversaries of thy truth, that so the work which thou hast mercifully begun, may be prosperously perfected by her. Let it never be told in Gath that the glory of jacob is darkened; let it never be published in Ashkelon that the sceptre of judah is fallen, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, and the uncircumcised begin to triumph. But let all the world know that thou carest for thy people and upholdest thine heritage. As for thine enemies they shall be as the smoke that vanisheth in the wind; as the wax that melteth at the fire; and as the dust that is scattered before the tempest. They shall perish, yea they shall all perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.