A NARRATIVE OF POPISH PLOTS With a full Account OF THEIR BLOODY DESIGNS.
LICENSED, December the 10 th. 1678.
AT length the sacred Mystery's reveal'd,
Those lowring Clouds, whose misty
Brows conceal'd
The Bright-beam'd Luster of Eternal day,
Dissolv'd to Vapours and are chas'd away
From his bright Throne, for Man to hide is vain,
Whose pow'rful Arms the trembling world sustain:
His Eyes survey the secret depths below,
From whence dire Massacres and Treasons flow;
From that great God what Mortal can retire,
Whose swist-wing'd Messengers are flames of fire.
From him what Cave, what dismal shades of night,
In whom there is no shade, can bar the light;
When Death and Hell stand obvious to his Eyes,
In whose bright self the Spring of brightness lyes.
The naked Universe before him quakes,
The trembling Earth's affrighted Pillar shakes:
The Deep's discovered, and all Secrets known,
The hearts of Kings and Princes are his own:
He rules in all, and yet proud Man dare do
The vilest things that Hell can prompt him to:
A little world of Dust, so swell'd with Pride,
Intic'd to Ills, he quickly turns aside:
Ne're fears Deaths little Anticks, nor the Grave,
Nor that dire portion thirsty Sinners have,
[...] thirsty
[...] pale-fac'd God of fears;
[...] deals in Sepulchres;
For why, of late the Scarlet Whore has made
Fate her diversion, Death her Childrens Trade:
By secret Treasons is her seat upheld,
Her murdering thoughts with steaming flaughter swell'd,
Grown proud with power, she fancies Sea and Land
Must bow beneath her Blood-bedabled Hand:
Thinks to unhinge the Globe, and tumble down
Kings from their Thrones, and grasp the Monarch's Crown.
Her flowing Cup being fill'd with slucing steel,
She drinks the Blood of
Martyrs till she reel.
Witness
Bohemia thou her rage canst tell,
In thee an Hundred Thousand Christians fell
By Popish Tyrants; Enemies to good,
Whom Tortures please their Eyes delight in Blood.
Those Crimson Streams exhausted, still she craves,
And seeks new VVorlds, for Blood she ploughs the VVaves;
Through briny Seas divides the swelling Flood,
And Tyger-like pursues the scent of Blood:
Those undiscover'd Lands which Natures care
Guarded by Seas, she finds, and fixes there
Her dreadful Engines; and for no offence
Millions are murder'd in their Innocence;
Naked, as when their Infant cryes did gain
Their Mothers love, but now their cryes are vain:
No whispering Voice of Mercy now appears,
Blood must be found, for that she seeks not tears:
Poor
Mexico, Peru, for both we grieve,
But grief augments those ills we can't relieve:
In days of old kind death on Age would smile,
Fates sanguine Eyes were strangers to your soile;
But now with dreadful Inquisitions drest,
Racks, Engines, Flames and Tortures, when at best,
Deluges of slaughter, and perpetual groans,
Horrour and Fury wait upon her Thrones:
That this is she, sacred Writ explains,
That City 'tis which over Nations raigns.
But why so wide my Muse, where wilt thou rome,
Let
India stay, thy Task is nearer home.
Her left hand's there, her right on
Europe lyes,
Distressed
Piedmont's, fatal Massacryes:
Cry loud to Heaven, 'tis Blood, the Nations sweat,
Fry'd and consum'd by her prodigeous heat.
Poor
Albigenses stifled are in Caves,
Waldenses slain and scatter'd without Graves,
A prey to Beasts; but for their Faith they dye;
Christ dy'd for them, they'll reign with him on high:
In
Flanders, in poor
Flanders, there was slain
Three times six thousand Souls by
Popish Spain:
The raging Sword, like a Disease came on,
Thy Blood was sweet to thirsty
Babylon:
By cruel
Jesuites the world's on fire,
No shade is found where Christians may retire;
On one hand Death, on th' other Treason stands,
Black as themselves to fright the harras'd Lands;
Like Foxes first they craftily betray,
Then, Lion-like, devour the greedy Prey.
Paris, in thee, alas! what fury set
To hunt for Souls, that
Babylon's Net,
So secretly cover'd, the Prince of Night,
Of Hell and Darkness hatch'd the damn'd Exploit;
To shroud this big-blown storm so swoln with Wind,
For smooth pretext, a marriage is design'd;
Navarre's young Bride must long, 'tis so, she wants,
To cure that pain, the Blood of
Protestants;
Her thirsty
Hymen is not pleas'd with Wine,
His Lust's too great, he wants the Crimson Brine;
Or else the Musick that delights their Ears
Must be a Peal of groans or dying prayers:
These, or what e're, when darkness did surrround
The Hell-bred rout began the fatal sound,
The Midnight cryes of Murder, Kill and Wound,
Alarm'd all the sleepy Host, but then
They slept secure, and never wak'd again:
Pav'd were the Streets with Slain, the Channels roare
Like some wild Torrent with the streaming gore;
But twenty thousand, ha—the sum's too small,
Not lives enough to make one Festival;
Their scarlet Mistress storms, and thinks it fit
That thirty thousand more should follow it.
Stay, wonder not, there's more, by her consent
The King was poyson'd in the Sacrament;
Oh horrid deed! what howling Fiend below,
Damn'd Spirits, Harpyes, can such Villains show;
The Mystery of our Saviours sacred Blood,
And glorious Body, Fountain of all good,
Must they be made, I dread to speak the guise,
To murder Kings and mask their Villanies;
Look down great God why sleeps thy Vengeance say
Thy injur'd mercies made the Monster pray.
Poor
Ireland's groans breathe fresh into my mind,
Anger by name to angry Foes consign'd:
Fates bailful streams upon thee have been shed,
And cruel hands have dy'd thy bosom red;
A hundred thousand sacrificed lives
By Tortures, Rack, and Massacreying Knives:
That
Phebus blush'd to see the Crimson day,
And muff'd in Clouds he turn'd his Face away;
Not silver Hairs, nor Infant cryes could prove
Of force sufficient Tyrants hearts to move;
Beauties in vain to blunt their fury strive,
First ravish'd are, and then ripp'd up alive,
From Mothers Arms infeebl'd by a Wound;
The Babe is snatch'd and dash'd against the Ground:
With Fire and Sword they triumph and declare
Their black Commissions from the Prince of Air:
This dreadful Beast whose crashing Jaws devour
The Nations up, receives the Dragons power;
His burning rage in
England has been seen
To plague her subjects, tempts the easie Queen:
Our brave Heroes fix their Eyes above,
And dare his mallice, arm'd with sacred love,
Redeem'd from Earth, they dare the worst of ill;
They fear not him who can the Body kill;
'Their Hands nor Foreheads never bore his Name,
'Mount like
Elijah up to Heaven in flame.
'To quell this storm begun,
Jehovah sent
'Such saving Balm as heal'd our Government,
And broke his Horn, with which he push'd down Kings,
And reach'd the Stars with proud aspiring wings;
Then like himself he threatn'd with his Tails,
And with dire plot our peaceful Land assails;
Powder and Fire the Engin brought from Hell
To shake the VVorlds affrighted Cittadel;
But Heaven took care to blast that black design,
And crush'd the Villains in their fatal Mine:
The Net was laid, and they forgetting where,
Groaping in darkness did themsleves ensnare.
Where more than seventy years, like Snakes in Snow
They seem'd benum'd, and scarce a motion show.
'Twas opportunity, not want of will,
That cramp'd the Tyrant, made his mallice still;
Warm'd by the mildness of a gracious King,
(Good next to him that made him) rears his Sting:
All guilded o're as smooth as Man cou'd seign,
Yet bears the deadly Poyson in his Brain:
His Mouth prepar'd a Flood to drive away
The sacred Church, and Cloud the States bright Ray.
The first by deadly
Acconite must dye,
The next devour'd by swarming Locust ly;
This Land so far for wholsome Laws renown'd,
With Peace, with Plenty, and with Justice Crown'd;
Rul'd by a Prince whom Heaven did so proclaim
Before the Tribes on Earth, to bear his Name:
A King so bounteous, merciful, and great,
Besides him none cou'd fill his Fathers Seat:
So just, so good, the Power Immence thought fit,
That Majesty should only Govern it.
The mighty God before whose Throne there lies
The flaming Seraphims, whose sacred cries
Are
Hallelujah, and eternal praise;
Glory and honour are before his Face:
Thousands of Angels, and ten thousands stand,
To execute his just, and great Command.
In vain does thirsty
Nimrod hunt for blood,
Heaven sees his secret Baths they are not good;
He brake the Lions Jaws, redeem'd the Prey,
The deeds of Darkness shew'd in perfect Day;
Sav'd his Anointed, and our gracious King,
To his great Name let's loud
Hosanna's sing:
He has remember'd mercy, still does bless,
And turns our Foes device to foolishness;
Hosanna, Power, Salvation, Glory, Might,
To him who dwells in everlasting Light.
Gloria Deo in excelsis, Pax Hominibus, Vivat in Eternum Rex Carolus Secundus.
FINIS.
LONDON, Printed for D. M. 1678.