Majesty, from whose Authority, Clemency and Justice next and imme∣diately after God, the Churches of France can only hope for support, protection, and preservation; being ready and willing to lay down in His Majesties Service all that is dear unto us, even our very Lives and Fortunes, professing and calling ••od to witness, that this is the Doctrine taught by our Pastors unto their Churches, agreeable to the word of God in the Holy Scriptures, and that Confession of Faith, which is owned and embraced by all the Reformed Churches of France. And the very first Vote which past was this, that notwithstanding there have been ever found among our People professing the Reformed Religion the noblest Instances and Patterns of a true, great, and most Christian patience under the worst of usages and oppressions in all places, and at all times sustained by them, yet nevertheless all and singular the Con∣sistories of our Churches shall continue their Counsels and Exhortations to them of abounding in Christian patience, equanimity and mode∣ration, and to pay unto their Countreymen of the Romish Religion all Offices and Duties of Humanity, Civility and Charity according to the Word of God, and Intendment of His Majesty, who also is most humbly petitioned to cast His Royal Eyes of Compassion upon the deep Afflictions of His Protestant Subjects, who, though they have alwayes labour'd to gain and keep the love and friendship of their fellow-Citizens, and Countrey-men, are yet notwithstanding in divers places of the Kingdom molested in their Persons, disturbed in the Exercise of their Religion, deprived of their Temples, yea, and see them demo∣lished before their Faces even since the peace, or else given away from them for dwelling houses unto the Rom••sh Priests and Ecclesiasticks, and that they be dispossessed of their Burying Places, and the Dead Bodies of very many Persons digged up most ignominiously, that our Mini∣sters have been barbarously beaten, bruised, wounded, and driven away from their Churches, although they have been the most innocent and inoffensive Persons in the World, who neither injur'd the Publick in ge∣neral, nor any one in particular, as our General Deputies shall more amply and at large make report hereof unto His Majesty.
Moreover the Council doth farther declare, That as the Churches within the Kingdom have ever been united in the profession of one and the same Faith and Acts of Love and Charity, because they are part of the same Mystical Body, whose Members have none other aim or end than with one heart to serve God and the King in peaceable Lives, and Liberty of Conscience, so as for the Churches in other Nations, they never had, nor ever will have any Intelligence, Alliance, or Correspon∣dency with them than what shall be approved by God and His Majesty, desiring always to live in peace under the Wings of His protection.
Farther the Council protesterh, that our Churches had never the least intimation or knowledge that any of their Members professing the Refor∣med Religion have tamper'd in any Plots or Treasons with the Spaniard, or other Enemies of this Crown, and if it could be proved to them that there be such as were ingaged in those pernicious designs and practises, we would be the very first with heart and hand to subscribe unto their Condemnation, and to abhor both them, their Complices and Adherents, as we now do from our very Souls profess our Abhorrency and De∣testation both of them, their Doctrine, and practise, who having divers times attempted to Assassinate the Sacred Persons of Kings, do to this very day uphold and mantain Intelligencies and Correspondencies both