Winter, to hear the Word of God, and to have their Children baptized. But let us go on to a second Piece.
Here is a Declaration hath lain heavy upon them, in reference to an infinite number of living Temples, who are ••ar otherwise to be lament∣ed for, by reason of the rigor they are us'd with, than the Temples of Stone that are demolish'd. It is of the thirteenth of March, 1679. Pray read it. It forbids all Popish Clergy-men, whatever desire they have, to turn Protestants; and even all those Protestants, who have forsaken their Religion out of Lightness, or Infirmity; to return to it again, upon better knowledge of the truth, press'd to it by their Consciences, and desiring to give glory to God. This dreadful Edict, will not suffer, that any of them shall satisfie their Consciences, in so important an Affair, under any less penalty, than that of the Amende Honorable, perpetual banishment, and consiscation of their Goods. I beseech you (said I) what doth the Declaration intend, by making Amende Honorable? You have reason to ask, replyed he, it is that you ought not to be ignorant of. Know then, that for them to make Amende Honorable is to go into some publick place, in their Shirt, a Torch in their Hand, a Rope about their Neck, followed by the Hangman, in this Equipage (which is that of the most infamous Criminals) to ask pardon of God, the King, and Justice for what they have done: that is to say, on this occasion, for having dar'd to rep••nt of sinning against God, for having forsaken a Religion which they believ'd Heretical and Idolatrous, and consequently, the infallible way to eternal damnation; and for being willing thence-forward to profess the Prote∣stant Religion, in which only they are perswaded they can be saved. This is, dear Friend, what they in••lict upon all Popish Ecclesiasticks to whom God vouchsafes Grace to discern the true Religion, and upon all Protestants, who having been such Wretches as to forsake it, are a••ter∣wards so happy as to be convinc'd of their Sin; and to repent. They call the first Apostates, and the other Relaps. But Names do not change the nature of things: the Misery is, that all this is executed with the ut∣most rigor. The Prisons of Poictiers, and those of other places are at this present filled with this sort of pretended Relapsed Persons; and it is not permitted to any one to relieve them. What possibility is there then for such as are in like Circumstances, and whose number every day increases, to continue in France?
But the mischief is much increas'd since this Declaration. What was particular to Ecclesiasticks and Relapse Protestants, is now become uni∣versal to all Roman Catholicks. I shewed you the Piece yesterday. It is that very Edict of Iune, 1680, wherein they pretend to confirm the Edict of Nantes. A Blessed Confirmation! The Edict of Nantes, as I have shewed you, allows the Liberty of Conscience to all them who were then Protestants, and to all such as would be afterwards, Inhabitants, or o∣thers.