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Denunciations of Papists, the "common enemy" gross falsehoods about their principles and acts fears real or pretended, of their wicked, bloodthirsty plots, thickly strewn in our path as we journey through this dismal period of our history reveal to us, as it were by accident, that there was another people in this island, besides those whom the law regarded as the nation; but they had no rights, they were outlaws "the Irish enemy."
The Pope at that time wrote to the Emperor, that he should not perform the safe-conduct; for which end all the Bishops also pressed the Emperor; but the Princes and States of the Empire would not consent thereunto: for they alleged that a great tumult thereupon would arise. I received of them a great deal of courtesy, insomuch that the Papists were more afraid of me than I was of them.
This is the fatal day that every body hath discoursed for a long time to be the day that the Papists, or I know not who, have designed to commit a massacre upon; but, however, I trust in God we shall rise to-morrow morning as well as ever.
He would not allow that they were justified at such a moment in calling in the aid of the Turks against the Emperor. "It is not enough that a nation be Protestant and the people our friends; if they will join with our enemies, they are Papists, Turks, and Heathens, to us."
For the crowd, becoming speedily acquainted with the Lord Mayor's temper, did not fail to take advantage of it by boasting that even the civil authorities were opposed to the Papists, and could not find it in their hearts to molest those who were guilty of no other offence.
The news from Scotland of the young king's subscription to the covenant, and denunciation of all terms with Irish Papists, came to aid the councils of those, who, like the eloquent French, Bishop of Ferns, demanded a national policy, irrespective of the exigencies of the Stuart family.
Thus did the Papists draw a plenary justification of intolerance, or even of atrocious persecution, from the evangelical 'Compel them to come in! The right of unlimited coercion was read in those words.
Barneveld, with his "nil scire tutissima fides," was denounced as a disguised Catholic or an infidel, and as for Paul Buys, he was a "bolsterer of Papists, an atheist, a devil," as it has long since been made manifest. Nevertheless these men believed that they understood the spirit of their country and of the age.
Hence it was that the very men whose liberties and estates had been secured by the declaration, and who were thereby permitted to hold their meetings in peace and quietness, used their newly acquired freedom in denouncing the king, because the same key which had opened their prison doors had also liberated the Papists and the Quakers.
And we have not heard the last of the 'law of liberty'; although I observe to my chagrin that many modern Papists depart from those great principles which they should take every opportunity of claiming as their own. In the freezing snows of the world's solitude, a prudent man does not try to make himself happy, but he is less than a man if he allows others to make him wretched.
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