of the Punishments which it has of late made use of for converting. We affirm, there’s as much Barbarity in Dragooning, Dungeoning, Cloistering, &c. People of a contrary Religion, in such a civiliz’d, knowing, genteel Age as ours; as there was in executing ’em by the hands of the common Hangman, in Ages of Ignorance and Brutality, before People had purg’d off the Manners of their Ancestors, Goths and Vandals, Scythians and Sarmatians, who formerly overspread the Roman Empire, and founded all the Empires and States in the Western Europe. Where Men have not purg’d off the Barbarousness of their Race, nor are inur’d to new Opinions, ’tis not so much in them to put those to death who profess ’em, as in those who are intirely quit of the Rust of their first Origin, who are polish’d by an Improvement of the Sciences and nobler Arts, who have liv’d all their Lives in the same Towns, in the same Conversation, in the same Partys of Pleasure, very often with those of the Reform’d Religion, carry’d Arms together for the same Cause; and bin in the same Interests with ’em, to prosecute, disquiet, torment, and vex ’em in <9> their Persons and Estates, as has lately been practis’d in France. This is our Rule for computing the just Proportion between the Crueltys of antient and modern Persecutions; nay, sometimes the slow Pain seem’d to us to cast the Scale: tho capital Punishment, or Death by the hand of the Hangman, not being inflicted in this last Persecution, must have hinder’d most People’s thinking it equal to those of former Ages, unless they compensated the want of Rigor in this last Scene, with the Excesses of Ignorance and Barbarity in former times. But setting aside all Compensations of this kind, here’s a certain Rule for finding the true Proportion between the one sort of Persecution and the other: Let any one compare ’em upon the square, and abstracted from all Circumstances of more or less Politeness of Times, and he shall find ’em equal, at least since the Declaration of July last, which forbids, upon pain of Death, the Exercise of any other Religion in France except the Romish; and which is executed without delay upon all who have the Courage to contravene it in the least. If the Reform’d of France were as zealous in these days as in those of Francis I and Henry II or as the English in the Reign of Queen Mary; we shou’d see as many Gibbets in these days as in those of old. Let’s think of this, and consider what Miserys betide us, shou’d we let Popery grow up again in these happy Climates. I don’t say this with a design of stirring up People to retaliate upon the Papists; no, I detest such Imitations: I only desire they may be kept from ever having it in their power to execute on us what they have the will to do. <10>
When I say the Protestants ought not to reprize themselves when they may, it is not from any such pitiful Reason as a French* Author gives us in a Book lent me since my Commentary was printed. ’Tis a reason so impertinent, that I cou’d scarce think they’d make use of it, and therefore did not propose it as an Objection. I was wrong tho in believing any thing too absurd for these Gentlemen; one wou’d imagine they had resolutely taken up the Character of being as ridiculous in their Apologys, as terrible in their Exploits: and one can never enough admire, that in a Country where there are so many good Pens, so many vile Justifications shou’d be suffer’d to pass. ’Twere much better not say a word, than defend themselves so wretchedly. Here’s this pleasant Author’s Thought. He introduces some Persons apprehending, that the Violences exercis’d on the Protestants in France may be prejudicial to the Catholicks in other Countrys.
Still it is to be fear’d, say some sort of People, that the Protestants, seeing how their Brethren are treated at this time in France, may think themselves warranted to treat the Catholicks in the same manner wherever they are Masters. But one must be abandon’d to all shame to pretend, that People, who have gone out of the Church within less than two hundred Years, and in a manner which all the World knows; People who have no kind of Authority but what they bestow on themselves, and what any one, who has a Mind to separate this hour, may give himself with altogether as <11> much color, shou’d be entitul’d to the same Privileges as the Catholick Church; which being founded by JESUS CHRIST and the Apostles, has continu’d in an uninterrupted Succession of all Ages, and shall abide to the end of the World in spite of all the Malice and Artifices of Sects and Schisms, and all their Endeavors to get her disown’d. … Once more then, he must be lost to all Shame who’l pretend, that rebellious Children have the same Power over their Mother which she has over them, or that they can take the same Methods for bringing those into their Communion who were never of it, as the Church has a right to take to reduce those to its Communion who cannot disown their going out from it. For which reason we have no Cause to apprehend, that what passes now in France can ever be drawn into a Rule in favor of Protestants. They may do the same thing in the Countrys where they are uppermost; but that which in the Church is a holy and regular Discipline, because founded on a lawful Authority, wou’d in them be a tyrannical Oppression, because destitute of a like Authority. As Kings punish those with Death who are taken in Arms against ’em, so Rebels have sometimes treated the faithful Servants of their Kings the same way when they have fall’n into their Hands. Whence comes it then, that the same Action is an Act of Justice with regard to the Sovereign, and a Violation of Right and Justice with regard to them? From hence, that of one side it’s done by a lawful Authority, and of the other without Authority. The Case is the same, when those who have revolted from the Church will force the Catholicks to come into their Communion, by the same Methods which the Church makes use of to bring them into hers. <12>
I ask my Reader’s pardon for troubling him with so long a piece of Impertinence. What! will these People ever be playing the fool? will they never leave arguing like Children, how great Abilitys soever they may have in other Matters? Shall we never beat it into ’em, that nothing in nature is more ridiculous than reasoning by always assuming the thing in question?10 The Dispute between them and us is, whether the Church of Rome be the true Church: Common Sense requires, that we on our parts shou’d prove from common Principles, and not from a bare Pretension, that she is not; and that they on their part prove she is the true Church, not by a bare Pretension (for that’s unpardonable in a School-boy) but from Principles common to them and us. This we have represented to ’em a thousand and a thousand times over; we have done it sometimes in a serious way, sometimes by turning ’em into ridicule: but nothing will open their Eyes; still they come about to their old Cant, We are the Church, you are the Rebels, therefore we have a right of chastising you, but you have none of returning us like for like. What stock of Patience is sufficient for such stuff?
There are some among ’em who tell us with the same compos’d Look, and with the same grave Air of Impertinence, that to find whether the Hugonots have just Cause to complain, we ought to consider what Judgment the Gallican Church makes of ’em; to wit, that she looks on ’em as rebellious Children, over whom she retains a right of Punishment, in order to reclaim ’em from their Disobedience. I own I can’t comprehend how these Men do to pick up all this <13> wretched Trumpery (give me leave to use this word to represent Impertinences, too ridiculous and vile to be fully exprest). Are they so blind as not to see, that the Pretensions of the Protestants, once suppos’d, give them a far more plausible Pretext for persecuting Popery, than that which Popery borrows from the Pretensions which it makes.
The Protestants pretend,11 that the Church of Rome, far from being that Spouse of JESUS CHRIST which is the Mother of all true Christians, is really an infamous Harlot, who has seiz’d the House, by the Assistance of a band of Ruffians, Cut-throats, Hell-hounds; who has turn’d the Father and Mother out o’ doors, has murder’d as many of the Children as she cou’d lay her hands on, forc’d others to own her for lawful Mistress, or reduc’d ’em to live in exile. These exil’d Children, these who are not able to bear the Infamy of living in a feign’d Obsequiousness for a Mother, whom they look upon as a Strumpet who has expel’d their true Mother, and slain their Brethren; these are the Protestants, or at least pretend to be. On one side then we see a Church which pretends to be the Mother of the Family, and that all who own her not as such are rebellious Children; and on the other side, Children pretending she is only an abominable Harlot, who has seiz’d upon the House by downright force, and turn’d out the true Mistress and the true Heirs, to make room for her Lovers, and the Accomplices of her Whoredom. To consider
