A REMONSTRANCE OF THE Popish Clergy of France, To their present KING LEWIS XIV.  
Wherein is attempted an utter SUPPRESSION& SUBVERSION OF THE Protestant Religion IN THAT King's Dominions and Conquests.  
Translated into English By a PERSON of QUALITY, For the Public benefit.  
 woodcut depicting a crowned cannon and Henry Brome's initials ' 
H B   
LONDON: Printed for Henry broom at the Gun in St. Paul's Church-yard. 1677.   

The Remonstrance of the Clergy of France, made to the King the 17. of August 1675. by the most Illustrious and most Reverend Jean Baptiste Adhemar de Monteil de Grignan, Lord Archbishop of Claudiopolis, Coadjutor of the archbishopric of Arles, and councillor to the King in his Councils, assisted by the Lords, Archbishops, Bishops, and other Deputies of the General Assembly now held at St. Germain en lay.  
SIR,  
YOur Majesty may peradventure by surprised to find, that after all those great and advantageous things, your Majesty has already done for the benefit of the Church, this same Church should again this day, by her principal Ministers, pour out her Remonstrances and Complaints at the foot of your Royal Throne, and implore your Sovereign Authority against the attempts of those who are Enemies to Religion.  
If, Sir, we should here suffer ourselves to be wholly governed by the motions of our own hearts, we should then only raise our voices to make the World echo with the many and great acknowledgements the Church of France so strictly owes to your Majesties Piety and virtue: But her immediate and pressing necessities oppose that Inclination, and compel us for some short space to suspend the Transports of our Gratitude, that we may represent to your Majesty, what you have yet remaining to do for the entire Re-establishment of Religion, wherein the principal point of our happiness does consist.  
And that which does most encourage and embolden us to satisfy this pressing duty, is, that we are assured we have the honour to speak to a King already prepossessed in our favour; and although the hearts of Kings, according to the Oracle of the scripture, are inscrutable, we nevertheless very well discern in that of your Majesty, your religious intentions for the Church. Piety inhabits that great, that magnanimous heart, an interior Advocate, that pleads for us much better than we can for ourselves.  
Besides, Sir, what is past is a sufficient Warranty to us for what is to come, the glorious Testimonies that Religion has, upon all occasions, received of your Majesties Christian zeal, the Demolition of so many Temples that Violence had erected to the Idol of error; the suppression of so many colleges, which were the Seminaries of Perdition, wherein they infected our over credulous youth with the poison of Untruth, the withdrawing your Majesties Royal Grace and Favour; and those other ways mixed with severity and sweetness, contrived by your own Piety and Wisdom to reduce those straying Souls into the Paths of Salvation: All these great advantages, which ought to be Objects of an Eternal Gratitude to the Church, are to us almost certain presages, that your Majesty will finish what you have so happily begun, and give the last stroke to this monstrous Hydra of heresy.  
Your Majesty, Sir, may easily perfect the Work, in doing that for the particular good of Religion, which you have already done in regulating the Administration of public Justice. You have, Sir, acquired to yourself the praise and admiration of foreign Nations, as well as those of your own People, by the Reformation of the Politic Laws of your Kingdom: Attract, Sir, also the Benedictions of Heaven upon your Person and Posterity, by reforming those Edicts and Declarations which sole Necessity, and the disorder of Affairs have wrested from the hands of the King's your Predecessors. And there are some also crept in even in these later times, which require you Majesties Application, to which the malignity of Heretics gives so false colour, and so many pernicious Interpretations, that we cannot avoid preferring our submissive Complaints, and humbly to apply ourselves to your Majesty for redress.  
If we will believe these Enemies of our Religion, we are not only not permitted to endeavour the Conversion of Children not yet arrived to fourteen years of age; but are also forbid to receive them into the bosom of the Church, when inspired by God himself to desire it. But these wilfully blind People do not see, that there are things in the Order of the Church, which cannot properly be the business of human Regulation, forasmuch as they are already regulated by the express, either natural or positive Laws of God: They do not discern that this is to offer violence to your Majesties Zeal, Piety and Justice. For were it not in fine, to endeavour to prescribe Limits to the Divine Mercy, and to subject the Grace of the Almighty to the Authority of human Laws? Our God is no more a respecter of Ages, than of Persons, saith St. Cyprian, his Spirit blows where and when it pleases him, without being subject either to time, or the Laws of men; and if it be a Crime worthy the severest Chastisement from God, to shut a man's eyes against the Light of Truth, and to resist the Divine Attractions of Grace, is it possible, without being criminal, to shut the doors of the Church against those, who by this same Grace are brought unto it? We are, as well as St. Paul was, Debtors to all, to Greeks and Barbarians, to the wise, and to the ignorant; and should we deny the Bread of the Word of Life to poor Children, who desire to be instructed by us! Should we see these innocent Souls, who are the most perfect Images of the Son of God, and the true Inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven, perish before our eyes! The Saviour of the World commands, that such be suffered to come unto him; and shall it not be lawful for us to take them by the hand? According to these false Maxims of the Heretics, our duty should be opposed against our duty, and we should, Sir, find ourselves reduced to the sad necessity either of violating the Laws of God, to observe yours; or of violating yours, to observe the Laws of God. But we are far from believing, that this can be conformable to the intentions of the most just and clear sighted of all Kings: The Rules of Christianity and Religion are too deep engraven in your Majesties Royal heart, to suffer such dangerous interpretations as these, and to clear all manner of doubt in so important an affair.  
We are formerly permitted to go visit the sick of the pretended reformed Religion, without being called; and we found by happy experience, that many who all the the time of their lives, had been obstinate Confederates with error, became at their death faithful Confessors of the Truth: The sickness that weakened their Bodies, served to fortify their Faith; disabused with the vanities of the World, they more Willingly gave ear to the admonitions of Conscience; the approaches of death, dissipated the illusions of life; and whether it were that Grace was no more strong, or that their hearts were grown more flexible to Instruction, their souls, even when half separated from the body, began with pleasure to relish Christian Verities. But how go matters now since we have been forbid to visit these sick persons? what desires soever these poor Wretches have to reconcile themselves to God and the Church, how importunate soever they are to have Priest, who is that Charitable man in the Gospel whose assistance they stand in need of, to plunge them into the healing Pool of Repentance? Those about them oppose these just desires, not one will do that good Office for them, and all their Friends conspire to stifle these good Dispositions, or to render them fruitless; and pretending them to be but idle ravings of an Imagination disordered by the violence of the Disease, with all possible caution and endeavour, hinder the Church from being made acquainted with it. What can there be then, Sir, more just to remedy so criminal a Vexation, than to suffer the Pastors of the Church, unsent for, to go and visit these sick persons, to the end they may truly discover their real Inclination? Is it not to allow those of the Religion a sufficient Toleration, and full liberty of Conscience, seeing it is to make them absolute Masters of their own free choice even to death, and to take order, that Parents and Relations may not exercise over them the most insolent and cruel of all Tyrannies, in taking this Liberty from them?  
But being, Sir, it would be the greatest rudeness and injustice, too much to abuse your Majesties more precious leisure, we shall pass over the other grievances we have to represent, in silence; of which also the Commissioners your Majesty has graciously appointed to be present at our Conferences, may give a more full account: But, Sir, the goodness of God prompts us to renew one most humble request; a svit that we have often preferred, but shall never cease to sigh, till your Majesty shall do us the grace to grant it. Which is by a solemn Law, and that under very severe penalties, to forbid all your catholic Subjects to change their Religion, seeing that this pretended Liberty of Conscience is looked upon by all the Catholics, as a Precipice set before their feet, as a Pit-fall made to trap their simplicity, and as a door set open to all manner of preciousness. Take from them, Sir, take from them this fatal Liberty, and settle them in a blessed necessity of being always faithful. Such a Law as this cannot possibly interfere with the Edicts that permit Liberty of Conscience, forasmuch as those Edicts having only respect to them, by whom they were with the greatest importunity solicited, and for whom alone they were made, can no ways comprehend the Catholics, by whom they have ever been loathed and abhorred.  
Besides, Sir, if these of the reformed Religion are tolerated to continue in their false Belief, why shall not the Catholics be permitted to bind themselves fast and firm to the true Religion, by all the Ties that may prevent the inconstancy of human Fancy? The Law, Sir, that we humbly propose to your Majesty is the strongest of all those Ties, and in imposing it upon your Catholic Subjects, your Majesty will not fortify their own resolutions, yield to their own desires, authorize their own wishes, and fasten, as I may say, the sacred Knots by which they desire irrevocably to bind themselves to the Faith of the Holy Church: And we have reason, Sir, to hope your Majesty will not deny them a means they entreat from you of assuring their Salvation; or rather that you will not deny it to God Almighty, who this day by my mouth requires it at your hands.  
What Sir, can you deny him, after all the Prosperities he had showered upon your head? What Success has he not blessed your Arms withal, when animated by your Royal Presence? It appears as if your Enemies were multiplied to no other end, but only to multiply your Victories. All your Campagns have been signal, either by the taking of some considerable Place, or some Province, and your Majesty has so accustomed us to see nothing in the History of your Reign, but Victory upon Victory, and Conquest upon Conquest; that having made us to forget that the chance of Arms is uncertain, it now appears strange, that it can be so much as once contrary to us.  
Is it not to God that you stand obliged for these glorious successses? Yes doubtless, Sir, it is; and it now remains, that you give the last and highest Testimony of your acknowledgement, by making use of your Authority for the utter Extirpation of heresy.  
Your Majesty has done nothing hitherto for the glory of your Name, that can parallel the Renown of such an enterprise. Actions that point at Religion, carry with them a Character of Glory, that other Exploits, how Heroic soever, can pretend no Title to: That which is enough to create a Hero in War, is not sufficient to make a Hero in Religion: The Re-establishment of Altars in a conquered Country, is more glorious than the Conquest itself: Catholics restored to liberty, do better adorn a Triumph, than conquered E●●●●●s, and the Titles of Protector of the Faith, and Defendor of the Church, sound much better in christian ears, than those of Conqueror and Invincible.  
O how happy had the Church been, if the jealousy of your Enemies would have suffered your Majesties zeal to have acted at its own liberty and full extent! We should then, Sir, no more need to petition you in the behalf of Religion: Your Majesty had prevented our desires, and even out-done our greatest expectation. Your Enemies, 'tis true, have attempted to thwart your great and pious designs; but, Sir, these weak oppositions, ought only to serve to augment the force of your zeal. Let these Maligners of your Glory, and the Prosperity of the Church, learn to their cost, to know, that you can at the same time both sight for your Dominions, and labour for Religion; that like those Illustrious Restaurators of the Old Jerusalem, you can hold your Sword in one hand, and build the Walls of the Holy City with the other. That is to say, that you can at once both make your Enemies feel the power of your Arms, and the Enemies of God feel the power of your Laws.  
It is, 'tis true, sometimes an Heroic virtue in those who command the Reins of Empire, and to whom all things ought to be submitted, themselves to give place to time, and to certain Conjunctures that happen in affairs: But, Sir, here the Cause of God is only in question; consult nothing but your heart in this case, resign yourself up to the Conduct of your own zeal, do as your Piety shall inspire you; the zeal of the House of God has sometimes holy Transports, preferable to that equal temper, which is the perfection of all other virtues; and the same God who is the mover of those religious Sallies, is Warranty for their Event.  
What ought you not to expect from that transcendent Genius, that raises you so high above the rest of men? What ought you not to expect from that Supreme Valour, the too liberal Fountain, 'tis true, of our fears and apprehensions for your Majesties safety; but that renders you, Sir, the terror of your Enemies.  
What glory will it be to your Majesty, when future Ages shall know, that if the Kingdom of France, happy under your Reign, has withdrawn and pulled in its Frontiers on every side, the Church more happy has extended hers into the heart of France. Posterity will then know, that if the felicity of Augustus, occasioned the felicity of his Dominions, the felicity of Lewis the Great, has created the felicity both of his Kingdom and the Church; and they will then also know, that as this Spouse of Jesus Christ has delivered you in Baptism from the servitude of sin, you also delivered her in your Kingdom, from the oppression of heresy; that as she admits you to the participation of her Sacraments, you have admitted her to a share in your Victories; and in a word, that as she daily sacrifices upon her Altars whatever she has of more precious and adorable for the Conservation of your sacred Person, you have also sacrificed your most precious time, and best endeavours, to procure her all the advantages she either can, or ought to expect from a most Christian Prince.  
Your Majesty then, Sir, sees yourself engaged both in Piety to God, and upon the account of your own particular Glory, to support the Interest of Religion. What, Sir, can we more desire? We have nothing more to beg of you, in order to the Gratification of our desires for the Prosperity of the Church, and shall never think we hazard the Cause of God, when when absolutely resign ourselves with an entire confidence to your Majesties perfect Wisdom, and Powerful Protection.   

Printed at Paris: By Frederick Leonard, Printer to the King and the Clergy of France, in James Street at the Crown of Venice. MDCLXXV.  

With the Kings privilege.