Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A50367
|
A true copy of a letter written by N. Machiavill in defence of himself and his religion translated from an original copy.
|
Neville, Henry, 1620-1694.; Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527. Works. English. 1675.
|
1691
(1691)
|
Wing M141; ESTC R4918
|
22,326
|
35
|
several Functions of their Calling as Prophesying that is preaching the Gospel Visiting the Sick c. and never intermitted the ordinary business of their Trade or Profession unless their Church or Congregation was very numerous in which case they were maintain'd by Alms or Contribution which was laid aside by every Member and Collected the first day of the Week by the Deacons this was said to be given to the Church and was imploy'd by Suffrage of the whole collective Body to the Poor and to other incidences so far was it from Sacriledge in those days to employ Church Goods to Lay uses From these words Church Clergy Ordination Pastor which last hath been Translated of late years Bishop you see what Conclusions these Men have deduced and how immense a Structure they have raised upon so little a Foundation and how easily it will fall to the ground when God shall inspire Christian Princes and States to redeem his Truths and his poor enslaved Members out of their clutches and to bring back again into the World the true Original Christian Faith with the Apostolical Churches Pastors and Ordination so consistent with Moral Vertue and Integrity so helpful and conducing to the best and most prudent Policy so fitted for obedience to Magistracy and Government all which the World hath for many years been depriv'd of by the execrable and innate ill quality which is inseparable from Priestcraft and the Conjuration or Spell of their new invented Ordination by which they cry with the Poet Claudian Iam furor humanum nostro de pectore sensum Expulit totum spirant praecordia Phaebum Which makes them so Sacred and Holy that they have nothing of Integrity or indeed of Humanity left in them I hope I shall not be thought impious any longer upon this Point I mean for Vindicating Christian Religion from the assaults of these Men who having the confidence to believe or at least profess themselves the only Instruments which God hath chosen or can chuse to teach and reform the World though they have neither Moral Vertues nor Natural Parts equal to other Men for the most part have by this pretence prevailed so far upon the common sort of People and upon some too of a better quality that they are perswaded their Salvation or Eternal Damnation depends upon believing or not believing of what they say I would not be understood to disswade any from honouring the true Apostolical Teachers when they shall be re-established amongst us or from allowing them even of right and not of alms or courtesie such Emoluments as may enable them cheerfully to perform the duties of their Charge to provide for their Children and even to use Hospitality as they are commanded by St. Paul But this I will Prophesie before I conclude that if Princes shall perform this business by halves and leave any root of this Clergy or Priest-craft as it now is in the ground or if that Famous Reformer fled some years since out of Picardy to Geneva who is of so great Renown for Learning and Parts and who promises us so perfect a Reformation shall not in his Model wholly extirpate this sort of Men then I say I must foretell that as well the Magistrate as this Workman will find themselves deceived in their expectation and that the least Fibra of this Plant will overrun again the whole Vineyard of the Lord and turn to a diffusive Papacy in every Diocess perhaps in every Parish So that God in his mercy inspire them to cut out the Core of the Uulcer and the bag of this Impostume that it may never ranckle or fester any more nor break out hereafter to diffuse new corruption and putrefaction through the Body of Christ which is his Holy Church nor to vitiate and infect the good Order and true Policy of Government I come now to the last branch of my Charge which is That I teach Princes Villany and and how to Enslave and Oppress their Subjects In which Accusation I am dealt with as poor Messieur Agnolo Canini was who as they report being a very Learned Practiser of the Laws and left the only Man of this profession one Autumn in our City the rest of the Advocates being fled into the Country for fear of a Contagious Disease which then reigned was commanded by our Judges to assist with his Counsel both Parties and to draw Pleas as well for the Defendant as the Plaintiff else the Courts of Justice must have been shut up In the same manner my Accusers handle me and make me first exhort and teach Subjects to throw off their Princes and then to instruct Monarchs how to Enslave and Oppress them but I did not expect such ingratitude from mine own Citizens or to be serv'd as Moses was when he was upbraided for killing the Egyptian by one of his own People for whose sake he had done it whereas he believed they would have understood by that action that he was the Person whom God intended to make use of in delivering them from the horrid Slavery they were then under If any Man will read over my Book of the Prince with impartiality and ordinary Charity he will easily perceive that it is not my intention therein to recommend that Government or those Men there described to the World much less to teach them to trample upon good Men and all that is Sacred and Venerable upon Earth Laws Religion Honesty and what not If I have been a little too punctual in designing these Monsters and drawn them to the Life in all their Lineaments and Colours I hope Mankind will know them the better to avoid them my Treatise being both a Satyr against them and a true Character of them I speak nothing of Great and Honourable Princes as the Kings of France England and others who have the States and Orders of their Kingdoms with excellent Laws and Costitutions to found and maintain their Government and who reign over the Hearts as well as the Persons of their Subjects I treat only of those Vermine bred out of the corruption of our own small Commonwealth and Cities or engender'd by the ill blasts that come from Rome as Olivarolâ— da Fermo Borgia the Baglioni the Bentivogli and a hundred others who having had neither right nor honourable means to bring them to their power use it with more Violence Rapine and Cruelty upon the poor People than those other Renowned Princes shew to the Boars the Wolves the Foxes and other Savage Beasts which are the Objects of their Chace and Hunting Whosoever in his Empire over Men is ty'd to no other Rules than those of his own Will and Lust must either be a Saint to moderate his Passions or else a very Devil incarnate or if he be neither of these both his Life and Reign are like to be very short for whosoever takes upon him so execrable an Employment as to Rule Men against the Laws of Nature and of Reason must turn all topsey
Iews into Superstition Formality and Hypocrisie to die for the Salvation of Mankind and in fine to give to us the Holy Spirit and to regenerate our Hearts support our Faith and lead us into all Truth Now if it shall appear that as the lusts of our first Parents did at that time disappoint the good intention of God in making a pure World and brought in by their disobedience the Corruptions that are now in it so that since likewise the Bishops of Rome by their insatiable Ambition and Avarice have designedly as much as in them lies frustrated the merciful purpose he had in the happy restoration he intended the World by his Son and in the renewing and reforming of Humane Nature and have wholly defac'd and spoil'd Christian Religion and made it a Worldly and a Heathenish thing and altogether uncapable as it is practised amongst them either of directing the ways of its Professors to Vertue and good Life or of saving their Souls hereafter If I say this do appear I know no reason why I for detecting thus much and for giving warning to the World to take heed of their ways should be accused of Impiety or Atheism or why his Holiness should be so enraged against the poor Inhabitants of the Vallies in Savoy and against the Albigesi for calling him Antichrist But to find that this is an undoubted Truth I mean that the Popes have corrupted Christian Religion we need but read the New Testament acknowledged by themselves to be of Infallible Truth and there we shall see that the Faith and Religion Preacht by Christ and settled afterwards by his Apostles and Cultivated by their Sacred Epistles is so different a thing from the Christianity that is now Profest and Taught at Rome that we should be convinc'd that if those Holy Men should be sent by God again into the World they would take more pains to confute this Gallimaufry than ever they did to preach down the Traditions of the Pharisees or the Fables and Idolatries of the Gentiles and would in probability suffer a new Martyrdom in that City under the Vicar of Christ for the same Doctrine which once animated the Heathen Tyrants against them Nay we have something more to say against these Sacrilegious Pretenders to God's Power for whereas all other false Worships have been set up by some Politick Legislators for the Support and Preservation of Government this false this spurious Religion brought in upon the ruines of Christianity by the Popes has deform'd the face of Government in Europe destroying all the good Principles and Morality left us by the Heathens themselves and introduced instead thereof Sordid Cowardly and Impolitick Notions whereby they have subjected Mankind and even great Princes and States to their own Empire and never suffer'd any Orders or Maximes to take place where they have power that might make a Nation Wise Honest Great or Wealthy This I have set down so plainly in those Passages of my Book which are complain'd of that I shall say nothing at all for the Proof of it in this place but referr you thither and come to speak a little more particularly of my first assertion That the Pope and his Clergy have depraved Christian Religion Upon this Subject I could infinitely wish now Letters begin to revive again that some Learned Pen would employ it self and that some Person verst in the Cronology of the Church as they call it would deduce out of the Ecclesiastical Writers the time and manner how these Abuses crept in and by what Arts and Steps this Babel that reaches at Heaven was built by these Sons of the Earth But this matter as unsuitable to the brevity of a Letter and indeed more to my small Parts and Learning I shall not pretend to being one who never hitherto studied or writ of Theology further than it did naturally concern the Politicks therefore I shall only deal by the New Testament as I have done formerly by Titus Livius that is make Observations or Reflections upon it and leave you Messieur Giulio and the rest of our Society to make the judgment not citing like Preachers the Chapter or Verse because the reading of Holy Scripture is little us'd and indeed hardly permitted amongst us To begin at the top I would have any reasonable Man tell me whence this unmeasurable Power long claim'd and now possest by the Bishop of Rome is derived first of being Christ's Vicar and by that as I may so say pretending to a Monopoly of the Holy Spirit which was promised and given to the whole Church that is to the Elect or Saints as is plain by a Clause in St. Peter's Sermon made the very same time that the miraculous Gifts of the Spirit of God were first given to the Apostles who says to the Iews and Gentiles Repent and be Baptised every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ for the Remission of Sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for this Promise is to you and to your Children and to all that are afar off even as many as the Lord our God shall call Next to judge infallibly of Divine Truth and to forgive Sins as Christ did Then to be the Head of all Ecclesiastical Persons and Causes in the World to be so far above Kings and Princes as to Judge Depose and Deprive them and to have an absolute Jurisdiction over all the Affairs in Christendom in Ordine ad Spiritualia yet all this the Canonists allow him and he makes no scruple to assume whilst it is plain that in the whole New Testament there is no description made of such an Officer to be at any time in the Church except it be in the Prophecy of the Apocalypse or in one of St. Paul's Epistles where he says Who is it that shall sit in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God Christ tells us his Kingdom is not of this World and if any will be the greatest amongst his Disciples that he must be Servant to the rest which shews that his Followers were to be great in Sanctity and Humility and not in Worldly Power The Apostle Paul writing to the Christians of those times almost in every Epistle commands them to be obedient to the Higher Powers or Magistrates set over them and St. Peter himself from whom this extravagant Empire is pretended to be deriv'd in his first Epistle bids us submit our selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake whether it be to the King or c. And this is enjoyn'd although it is plain that they who Govern'd the World in those days were both Heathens Tyrants and Usurpers and in this submission there is no Exception or Proviso for Ecclesiastical immunity The Practice as well as Precepts of these Holy Men shews plainly that they had no intention to leave Successors who should deprive Hereditary Princes from their right of Reigning for difference in Religion who without all doubt are by