to put him into another that might in a smal time prove as bad or if he had governed moderately all his life it had been like the good day in a Feaver which is so short and uncertaine that it takes away all tast of Ease and Delight c. A DISCOURSE Upon the Greatness Corruption OF The Court of Rome THere is nothing Idlenesse and Peace makes not worse Labour and Exercise better The Tree that stands in the Weather roots best and deepest The running Water and Aire that is agitated are most wholsome and sweet The Cause of this may be deduced from Gods eternall Decree That nothing in Nature should remain idle and without motion This also extends to the Children of Grace who goe more nimbly about the works of their heavenly Calling being driven by the stormes of Persecution than when they have nothing but the smooth voice of Prosperity to allure and perswade them The Martyrs professed Christ more boldly amidst the flames of the hottest Persecutions than we dare do in the Sunshine of the Gospell God never made a larger promise of his continuing Truth in any place than to the Nation of the Jewes Yet how often do we find it buried in the rubbish of Errors and Impiety Their Kings and Priests either teaching or at least tolerating Idolatry The Church being driven into so dark and narrow a corner as the Prophet Elias could not discover a righteous man Neither was Jerusalem in better plight which had the Temple and in that the Oracles of God in possession For if it did scape profanation during the worser dayes of Solomon his son Rehoboam saw it plundered and in most of his successors raignes it lay neglected or misimploied So that if a stranger led by the glorious title the Jewes had to be the people of God should have conformed himselfe to their worship he had scarce mended his markt though he were before never so great an Idolater Yet God never gave a larger Charter to any Church part of it being contained in these words I have hallowed this House which thou hast built to put my name there for ever This proves Gods Promises conditionall and that outward Felicity seldome accompanies inward Integrity or if they have the luck to meet they presently part mens hearts being ordinarily to narrow to entertain goodnesse and worldly pomp The Churches we read of in the New Testament with whom the Holy Ghost was so familiar as to direct particular Letters unto them are not now to be found Onely Rome brags she remains the same in purity of Doctrine though for Manners she is as corrupt as her elder Sister Sodome so that if Italy be a Circle of Impiety the Court of Rome is the Center Yet these plead their Title with God himselfe grounding it upon the tottering Foundation of worldly felicity Forgetting that it is against the example of all times that any Nation much lesse a Church should so long saile under the merry gale of earthly prosperity not long ere this discharge herselfe of that rich lading she was fraught with all when she traded for Soules under the Fathers of the Primitive times There having been such a succession of imperious greatnesse in that Chaire as Rome is now more like the proud triumphant Chappel of Antichrist than the poore and militant Church of God All the calamities that have of late fallen upon her may be said to have dropt from her owne Ambition in seeking to enlarge her power at the cost and prejudice of others and therefore more naturally to be styled Punishments than Persecutions You cast your eyes on no Story where the villany of Popes is not at large discovered who can then believe that the pure Spirit of God should indow with infallibility of judgment Monsters so visibly corrupted We finde the Holy Ghost did under the Law hate and forbid all impurity though in meer outward Ceremony how then should he under the brighter light of the Gospell suffer himselfe to be poured out of one uncleane Vessell into another beginning again with a Conjurer where he left with a Sodomite Yet they say Rome is the true Church out of which there is no Salvation Not remembring that the holy Scripture Charity and Reason tell us Gods Church is as universall as the Earth and shall one day be gathered together under Christ the Head Now in the meane time that harmony of Opinions they pretend to may be rather wished than hoped for In Pauls time some made conscience of eating things sacrificed to Idols others of Circumcision yet he condemnes them not for schismaticall And it is but a weak evasion to say He bare with them in regard of the infancy of the Church For in these dayes of knowledge she is as infantine in some places as she was then where he that taught had the strength of Miracles to justifie his Doctrine which these want and are driven to this shift in lieu of them to cozen the people with such as are supposititious Now if there be no salvation out of the Church of Rome not to speak of our selves c. what Charity is it to think all the Water cast away that is poured in Christs name upon the faces of those Christians in Greece Rushia and remoter places to which this Ages curiosity covetousnesse hath taught thē the way This makes me think there is no room for such monopolizing Opinions But I leave this to Divines returning to the Pope After the Piety of the first Bishops of Rome had purchased them Reputation and that God had not onely opened the hearts of Potentates to receive the Gospell but their hands to build and endow Churches They being advanced first to the Dignity of Arch bishops thence to Patriarchs so at last to the Papal Supremacy a name derived from Pater Patriarcharum which for brevities sake was written Pa Pa exchanged their Piety for Promotion It being the Custome of fraile Humanity to conclude goodnesse at the beginning of Felicity For taking the advantage of new kindled Zeale wisely observed by them to be the hottest the Popes were able to lead King and People whither they pleased in the interim had the opportunity to proportion what power or riches they thought fit for themselves Now as Policy is not able to keep long the right way to Heaven so at last it led them into a world of Impieties by encroaching under pretence of Religion upon higher Jurisdiction and Power than could naturally belong to Subjects which wanting strength of their own to maintain they sheltered them under the Donation of such Princes as had no better titles to their Crownes than was derived from an Vsurpation over the weaknesse of those in former possession glad of the Popes Protection because they found the generality of men either out of Religion or Ignorance made their estimate of the truth or falshood of the Titles and legality of the Claims of Princes according as they were
if you will call them pious Lives of a few melancholick Friars it is impossible so much wickednesse should not be booted out of the world Yet the Court of Rome hath as strong Supporters as Policy is able to bring though her truest friends are Ignorance the Inquisition and Interests of Princes The first lies in every particular manto reform the second for the most part in the King of Spaine the third onely in God Politicall Occasions Of the DEFECTION From the CHURCH OF ROME AS some Diseases and other Mulcts but accidentall in the first result become after a small Succession hereditary to a Family So Opinions if once inveterate tender their Professours Ears like those of the Adder deaf to the wiser more probable Charmes of Reason I come just now from talking with a Papist and find him though a Scholar so wrapped up in the old rags of Tradition and inspired with so strong an Implicit Faith that I think it had been one of the nearest things to impossible for the Bishop of Rome to have lost so many had he not fallen into such Errors as these 1. The seeking to maintain a greater shew of Piety in the Church than was suitable to humane Frailty the comforts of Life The Friars Habit being no lesse nasty than unseemly and therefore shunn'd by nicet Judgments those of parts not so capable of temptation from any thing as Pleasure Profit Or if such Austerity was called for in relation to externall Zeal the parade of all Religions and fit to be mustered up often in the eyes of the people yet the generality might have been left to more decent Acoutrements by which they had become sociable unto others not loathsome to themselves 2. Though such Austerity was exacted from the Members the Head and capitall Clergie observed not the like which alarum'd not onely their Maligners but those of their owne Coat whose Desert or Fortune had not raised them to the same Transcendency 3. The admittance of Printing unpossible but to prove disadvantageous unto those whose strongest evidence for the maintenance of their Power lay in the Ignorance Patience of the World which this could not but be thought probable both to informe and disturb 4. The suffering Nations to swell into such vast Bodies as France Spaine c. The most obtained under the Churches pretence which in favour to one and malice to others did blast Princes titles by the thunders of Excommunication and set the people at odds with their Naturall Soveraigns By which Exorbitances they taught the Germans and our Henry the eight to find out a Remedy by applying to this proud flesh the powder of Reformation the strength of which made the same Zeal that swell'd the Priests to this height as ready to teare away the ground frō under them 5. The mixing a desire of temporall power with what is purely spirituall put such an allay upon their Sanctity that it became lesse current than otherwise it might have been had they not used the Sword which Peter only drew yet not without acheck in his Master's cause to purchase Principalities for their Children Nephewes 6. The falling into the common Error of weaker Princes who to palliate some extēporary mischiefe do oftentime scontract an incurable inconvenience as was done in the case of John Husse Hierom of Prague in relation to whose proceedings the Fathers in the Councill of Basil enacted That No Faith was to be kept with Hereticks By which they have rendered themselves incompatible with any other Tenents than their own To whom they do by this almost as much as confesse that upon the accesse of a power sufficient none are to expect milder conditions than to lay their heads upon the Block or cast their consciences at the Popes feet 7. The irrepealable Authority given to the Decrees of all approved Synods opposeth the Custome of Nature and course of all sublunary things whicy are apt to change no lesse than true reason of State that abhors to be shackled by any severer restraint than she is able to cast off upon approach of a greater advantage The dispensing with an unsociable Tenent being far lesse prejudiciall than the continuance of it against the grain of the generality 8. The Pope should have removed at least so many of the Hundred Greivances presented at the Diets as he found all Estates cōcurred in the dislike of The charge and trouble incident to the Roman Religion afflicting mens temporalities as much almost as their Falsehood could their Consciences It being more Policy to part with things not absolutely necessary willingly than by constraint 9. The open partiality shewed in the affairs of divided Princes By which the one side is made perpetually his enemy the friendship of the other no longer permanent than it receives benefit being wise enough to see that the same Arts and Power that are able to help now may upon the recoil of Interest be as apt to hurt All strength conjuring up jealousie in Kings that is not absolutely at their own dispose 10. The ordinary slight Provocations the Pope took to draw the dagger of Excommunication which acquainted Princes no lesse with the bluntnesse of his Weapons than the keennesse of his Malice By which they were taught to abate so much as possibly they could the reach of his power lest it should have increased to an universall prejudice nothing being more notorious than the Ambition of the Church not possibly to be moderated but by an absolute restraint an open discovery of the Arts used to twist the Interests of Christ with those purely their own a medly of Colours apparent to judicious eyes with which Religion was so dapled that it was embraced by the most rather out of ostētation than love or pure zeal and so not likely to continue long 11. Had he turned the edge of his Ecclesiasticall sword against Turks and Infidels which he hath since Gregory the great chose rather to sheath in the bosome of Christians whose differences especially if they intrenched upon his Supremacy he fomented into flames he might have inlarged the extent of his own jurisdiction by a supply of new Proselytes who are ever fonder of their Nurses than those whose sharper experience of the covetousnesse and Ambition of the Church hath weaned from being so highly pleased with the Roman Gue-gaus I confesse it unsuitable to his Interest to suffer all or the major part of Christendome to fall under the jurisdiction of one person for then his power would be eclipsed as the Moon in Opposition or quite lost as the Stars upon the approach of the Sun which arraigns him of Indiscretion for suffering the German Empire to be Hereditary easily to have been fore-seen when once it fell upon so powerfull a Prince as Charles the V not likely to part with any thing he had once possessed now too strongly rooted in the Austrian Family ever to be eradicated but at
earthly Felicity Universality and Consent as the Papacy Neither do they want as great an Antiquity for some of their Tenets the which if they once come to be washed over by the varnish of Learning the Mufty may assisted by his Master's force turne his Holinesse out of Rome as that Bishop did the Emperours and so avenge Europe and Asia both for the rent the subtill Priests made between the East and the West Churches for no more religious respect than to beautifie their own habit and increase their Power And if the Virgin City of Venice comes to be wholly prostituted to the lust of this Monster who hath already intangled his Sword in one of her strongest Locks it is possible the Catholick King shall not be able long to injoy those Concubinary Principalities made his by no juster Contract than the Procuration of his Chaplain the Pope his own Subtilty and the impertinent Quarrels of lesse advised Neighbours But to give the Pope his due looked upon by the dazled eyes of our Zelots for a more terrible Devil than it may be he is were he confined within a narrower Circle in relation to temporall power Christian Princes are apt to take so much advantage from the harping irons Luther Calvin and other Divines perhaps better skill'd in subverting Errors than reconciling of Truth have fastned in the sides of this Ecclesiastical Leviathan not to be kept floating in a narrower Sea than that of Rome formerly as Magisteriall in things temporall as now she remaines in spirituals which prudence might manage to as universall a tranquility as appeared in the dayes of Augustus that he hath no leisure to look abroad for feare the same Spirit that troubled the waters in Germany should dry up those in Italy c. It being in the power of every Prince to cut the banks of the Church which in France is the feare of Schisme and in the Catholick King's Dominions the Inquisition Yet in case his Holinesse should make it a cordiall endeavour to foment a League against the Turk France and Spaine would fall out who should head it and endeavour to spoile the others Subjects in the meane time Such incomparable Charity resides among Christian Princes that value Religion no higher than the profit it brings so as the Roman Bishop with all his Emissaries have full imployment by adding and taking away to keep the scales even between these two tottering Princes and to heighten their spirits against England and other Nations at enmity with Rome least we should have a Great Turk of our own that is an Universal Monarch under whose absolute power the Pope and all other Christian Princes could expect no higher places than those of Vassals And though a Combination were feasible small advantage would accrue since every considerable confederate must have a Generall of their own from whence would proceed more Cry than Wooll by perplexing Counsels with contrary commands Because if it were probable Kings should so far forget their Honour as to lay down all disputes about precedence yet their particular Interest could not but remember them that the strength designed against the Turke might after successe recoile upon themselves not without a president in Story and therefore not likely to employ any other in Chiefe but their own Subjects And what contrary affections ends and endeavours are covered under a Force patched up of so many Nations is manifest in the Maritime battell of Lepanto where though the desire of all might be to ecclips the Ottoman Moon yet it was in many so faint as they could not endure it should be removed quite out of its Sphere or lose the Interest it doth exercise within the Christian Pale which by a through persecution of that naval victory might easily have been brought about out of feare the greater Princes by that secured should after have made it their endeavour to devour the less And this with some Un brages of Jealousies the Catbolick King had of his Brother Don John of Austria made the Confederates return without doing more than shew the Grand Segnior wherein he was defective and by this chastizing to make him mend the fault he had committed in being no better provided of Commanders and Provisions for Sea which he hath since repaired at our cost by maintaining an Arcenall in Algeers of which the King of Spain denyed his Brother to be Governour so jealous are Christians one of the other that they have more confidence in Turks than those of their own Religion yet to speak Gods troth whosoever shall command an Army against this Epidemicall Enemy with such successe as Don John had will be owner of too popular an Honour to be less than superlative whereever he comes and therefore liable like him to receive a Fig out of the venemous hand of Jealousie Which warrants me to think the fittest for such an imployment as the heading an Army raised by a League is the Pope who lying within gun-shot himselfe is the most likely to take the truest aime at the finishing of the work But this the Lutherans and Protestants would oppose no lesse than the Princes of Italy who cannot but feare that the power of the Ottoman Family being sufficiently moderated he could have no better employment for the Army than to face them with it looked upon perhaps in his esteem as greater enemies Yet if there were an unity in Religion and a totall abatement of his Holinesse pretences to any secular power farther than the extent of Peters Patrimony it might with more probability be brought about than any temporall Prince is able to give caution for And thus Policy might not onely make use of him in opposing the Turk but in reconciling such Kings as when they are weary of their inconsiderat Quarrels know no other way to bring about peace than by the mediation of the Bishop of Rome But as things now stand Experience hath taught us how vain a Composition of Force is in the attempt of moderating the Ottoman Grandure Nor is any Prince yet in a capacity to undertake him alone The Emperour being shackled by the links of contrary Opinions and now utterly disabled since the Swedes Ineursion I confesse the Catholick King upon whose skirts he sits were the most likely to get ground upon the Turks Dominions did not the French perplex him with the feare of losing his own Between which Nations there can be no reconciliation so long as the Pope's greatnesse is supported by Division An Universall Monarchy in Europe being more against the graine of the Court of Rome than it yet apprehends danger from that in Asia so as it is no improbable Paradox to maintain That the Turk by accident supports his Holinesse And if the Pope and Inquisition were put down Atheisme would break in like a Torrent or which is worse Religion would be divided into such destructive bloudy and hypocriticall streames as her name would be quite lost in the dilatation or render her professors
Court of Rome it was managed by them with so much Policy that it did rather much strengthen confirm the exorbitant power of that See The greatest things in dispute between Papist and Protestant are matters concerning Profit or Honour which may satisfy any not delighted with blindnesse that they were brought in by the diligence of the Priests taking advantage from the ignorance of preceding Ages From all which I may conclude that such amongst them as are wise conversant in history acquainted with the present practise of the Court of Rome are souly to be suspected of Atheisme because Conscience can never be perswaded against a convincing experience which is also made good by the irreligious Italians from whom comes this Proverb The neerer the Church the farther from God For such abhor Religion because they see the Pope makes but a politick robe of it taking the liberty himselfe to put it on or off as becomes his occasions A DISCOURSE UPON THE ELECTION OF POPE LEO the XI IN the Negotiations of Cardinall Peron may be found a perfect Journall of so much of the Election of Leo the Eleventh as was possible to bee knowne by one side to which Discours I shall refer all those that do believe the Pope can be the true Successor of Peter It being incongruous both to Prudence Religion to imagine the Holy Ghost should mingle Interests with the ambitious ends of Princes who shun no impious means to make him succeed that is thought the truest friend to their Occasions I know it is not onely in the power but the practise of God to raise his ends out of ill means Yet it were presumption in men to shape out his work though he be able to fit our endeavours to his own Honour But the Court of Rome seeks to make the people believe that notwithstanding these Considerations after the Masse of the HolyGhost is said he is as really present in the Conclave as he was with the eleven Disciples when they chose a Successor to Judas who betrayed Christ In which they acknowledge themselves either Atheists or presumptuous fighters against God For if the Choice be his how dare they interpole their mediation or hope the French or Spanish Factions can possibly prevail one side ever interrupting because both cannot be pleased They have of late been made sometimes by the other which must conclude the Holy Spirit subservient to humane Endeavours or no more friend to this Choice than to that of the Grand Seignior Here you may see how they labour to hire or force the HolyGhost to fix upon sōe such subject as may be most auspicious to the prevalent Party who is invoked out of Ceremony leaving the rest to be hewed out by themselves Before these Monarchs grew so potent the troubles in the Conclave were rather more than lesse For the Cardinalls made Elections so tedious by their towsing that sometimes the Romans sometimes other Princes forced them to resolve And to avoid such constraint they did often pitch upon Impotent men such as for Age or Weakness were not likely to hold out long as this Leo who died in few weks after his assumption during whose time the Pretenders are at leisure to concoct their Designes better which is ordinarily done by Bribes or in case they prevaile not by Poyson nay the Devill is not left unsought to So as Balzac saith None on this side the Alpes labour more to look well than some of them to seem-sickly and weake hoping by that means to obtain the Chaire which is able of a gouty Cardinall to make a sound Pope In antient time the Bishops of Rome were chosen by the Parish Priests of that City And how since Cardinals came in is no more known though not antient thā the date of many Novelties that have most shamefully been imposed upō the Church Yet to this day no Ecclesiasticall Cardinall for they have others but retains among his titles the name of one of the Parish Churches in Rome though he be ordinarily called by his own name or else some other Bishoprick or Dignity he hath in Cōmendā By the institutions of a former Pope which for shame they dare not revoke all his Actions that gets into the Chaire by Simony are null Now what are all these sinister Endeavours but so many severall sorts of Simony If Simon Magus had attempted by Policy mediation of Friends or Flattery to have obtained the Gift of the HolyGhost should his fault have been lesse or not rather greater Money being the richest offer he could make and most suitable to the Apostles wants which he saw others indued with the same Spirit daily cast at their feet And if this be granted when had the Church a Head able to utter any thing but Falshoods or Nullities All Popes having for many yeares entered at one of these Gates In Civil Kingdoms the Crowne is to be obeyed without questioning how the Wearer came by it but to tie the Ecclesiasticall power to these conditions were to binde the Holy Ghost to the Popes Chaire The Bishop of Rome layes an absolute claim to an unerring Spirit but is not able to demonstrate the time when he had it If it were alwaies the Errors found inherent in the persons were uncapable of blame or retraction Yet out of this Cloud of uncertainety say they the Holy Ghost dictates onely to his Church such as deny it are Hereticks If at any time he hath the Spirit of infallibility it is perhaps at his first entrance into the Chaire as Saul had a greater measure upon his new anointing than in all his Raign besides yet in the Election of this Leo the XI of the House of Medici and before his Assumption known by the Title of Cardinall of Florence appeares no such matter which would not have been omitted by the penner of the passages of their Conclave being an eye witnesse a Cardinall who doth pride himselfe much in his fortune the policy both he the French Party had used in his advance But it may be Paul the Fifth who succeeded this Leo had it when he made so great a present to the Devill as at once to excommunicate the whole State of Venice with all the territories belonging unto it But this was afterwards condemned by himselfe as rash inconsiderate terms most unbefitting a thing done by God And wise men may here justly take occasion to conclude that no Pope doth think or ever thought he had a power of not erring For if such a Spirit were an usuall companion of that See Paul the Fifth would have expected the operation of it and not have troubled a State to so little purpose without the assistance at least of a Revelation He that desires to be informed of the Illnesse of Modern Popes may be abundantly satisfied if he Consult Historians who are not dumb in declaring the faults of the Court of Rome The truth is were it not for the strict or
the cost of a totall subversion either by the Turke or Lutheran Professors 12. The severall Orders and distinct Names they gave the Friars known to breed Emulation Division among them as is evident about the Conception of the V. Mary c. And the irreconcilable feud between the active Society of Jesus and all the other duller Fraternities 13. Ceremony though the Body of Religion yet is too weak to bear that Stresse the Priests laid upon it who should rather have built upon faith to which nothing is impossible Considering withall that though externall behaviour may add warmth to zeal yet a redundancy of it doth not seldome suffocate extinguish it by converting it into Idolatry which is a palpable mistake in the worship of God and cannot long among knowing people be held from clamouring for a Reformation which the Pope should ever have prevented by a hasty doing it himselfe For if once undertaken by the uninterested Rabble they will never leave till the forme of worship is bruised beaten out of all comlinesse so as nothing can satisfy but the molding it anew Which the win of no single Age much lesse that contained in a few Heads is able to make compleat Church Discipline well instituted being the highest result of all Prudece God hath intrusted men withall whose materialls too neer scrutinized seem to discover more Policy then Piety by the contemplation of which mens Judgements being once dazeld they are ever after propense to Athoisme and a prejudiciall jealousie of their Teachers 14. The Pope neglected the prudentiall carriage of a Miller who being supplied with a larger stream than the conveniency of his Trade requires suffers it to run wast rather then endanger the subversion of the whole Engine he hath liv'd so long happily by Whereas the Pope permitted the Ecclesiasticks not onely to appropriate to their particular profit all that which ignorant zeal did voluntarily plentifully shower down upon them but connived at the Mists and Thunders they raised in the Consciences of Dying men By which they became co-heirs almost in every Family Forgetting that A great Booty invites Theft at best Envy it being unlikely Princes should long forbear squeezing such Spunges out of awfulnesse to Religion as had no better authority for their dreining their Subjects than they drew from a forraign power owned by the most rather out of Policy than Piety especially since it was ordinary with his Holiness himselfe to make great Leavies upon no other reason than to augment his own or raise new Empires for his Sons or Nephews 15. The abundance of such contingencies bred a neglect of their surer more legitimate Patrimony consisting in Tithes unquestiond Churchoduties very sufficient to have maintained a number large enough for the loading the patience and conveniency of the most prudent States without the additiō of such vast Revenues not possible to be apprehended but under the notion of things superfluous in the Church since Christ in person never owned such Plenty which made it seem more undecent in him that pretended to be his Vicar 16. Fallacies discovered in Miracles which call in questiō as well those antiently truly done as such as are reported to be new Thus the pious Deceits our Ancestors used to bring men to salvation are not only made Stales to catch Profit but instrumentall to Infidelity A DISCOURSE IN VINDICATION OF Martin Luther HE may be suspected of Hypocrisie if not Atheisme that too suddenly leapes out of one Opinion into another It being impossible for meer flesh and blood to pull up all at once a Religion rooted by Costome and Education in the Understanding which must be convinced before it can let in another with any cordiall welcome I speak not of the antient and extraordinary Callings of God but those experimented in our times in which over much hast doth often-times bewray Deceit As appeared in the Bishop of Spalatto who in my dayes left Italy for fear of Paul the fifth his enemy and reconcil'd himselfe to the Church of England but the old Pope being dead and his Kinsman in the Chaire he resumes his former Errors and goes to Rome in hope of Preferment where contrary to promise he dies miserably When Falshood is fallen-out with for any other respect than Love of Truth it inclines to Atheisme and is so far from mending the Condition of the Convert that it renders it worse None ever shewed greater signes of Gods Spirit than Luther did who observed such Gradations as it may appear he found faule with nothing he was not first led to by the dictates of Conscience Falling first upon the abuse of Indulgences too apparent an Impiety to passe by so acute a Judgment undiscovered From this he ascended to higher Contemplations which afforded him the opportunity to take notice of remoter and deeper Errors His Wit Learning having that vast advantage over the stupid Ignorance of those times that he bare down all before him without any other Opposition than the contrary Faction was able to raise out of power much weakened by the desire all Princes had to set limits to the Pope's daily Usurpations And as for the Books then writ against him they did rather shar pen than blunt the desire of Change For the Friars had so long enjoyed a free current of their Doctrine without interruption that they were more intent on the reaping of such Fruit as grew from the Errors sown by their Predecessors than upon Arguments to defend thē So as if Princes that were weary of the Yoak of Rome had wanted the guidance of Luther it is not easle to say whither they might have wandered And though Charls the fifth then Emperour to keep his subjects in obedience did seem to discountenance the Schism as they call'd it yet he was content to shut up the Pope in the Castle of S. Angelo Which proves his small affection and the truth of this Tenet that if ever Christendome falls under one Monarch or turns into popular States the power of the Pope will be lost or confined to Rome being at this day onely kept up like a Shittle-cock by the bandying of Princes 'T is objected against Luther That he was too passionate using irreverent speeches towards some in Authority Yet so much of this fault as Zeale leaves unexcused may be imputed to his Education All can be said is He was but a Man and subject to Common Infirmities And because his ene mies do so often object this it is strongly to be presumed his worst fault I could have wish'd he had not married a Nun but I believe he did it to shew People The Quarrell was irreconcilable as Absalom projected when he polluted his Fathers bed And in this sense the benefit takes away much of the blame which lay not in the unlawfullnesse but the inexpediency of the fact And to shew God did not curse his Match Though he might participate of the fate of other learned men