no mans person I am Pope and 't is in my power to null or confirm their Acts as I think good my self Let not the Cardinals inquire now what means the Popes made use of to invade and usurp the authority they formerly injoy'd because they are sure to be answer'd with nothing but violence insolence and threats against which they having not courage enough to defend themselves do sit down contented only with the Title and appearance and it is certain at this day that the Cardinals have no more authority over the Church than the Duke of Savoy has over the Kingdom of Cyprus of which he will be call'd King notwithstanding so the Cardinals will be call'd Princes of the Church whilst the Pope runs away with the power doing and undoing as he pleases giving offices and preferments at his pleasure and imposing his own Laws without contradiction insomuch that the Consistories Congregations and Colledges are only for the service and assistance of the Pope who suffers not the Cardinals to transact any thing but by his direction and if they do he revoaks it so that it is too true they have nothing left but a bare outside authority All this would be past over nevertheless and their affliction would not be so great were it the Popes only that commanded the Cardinals but the misery is for more than an age past so many Nephews as have been in Rome so many Popes have there been to command them for the Popes communicating the authority they usurp'd with each of their Nephews they know very well which way to put in execution and have no need to be taught how to make their advantages Is it not a melancholly and most deplorable sight to see two sorry little-headed Nephews make so many Logger-headed Cardinals to tremble that one poor single Nephew should keep the whole Colledge in awe That two pittiful Relations of the Pope's born and brought up in obscurity should be more considerable in Rome than so many Princes of most noble Extraction That the Popes should give more ear to the advice of a Nephew newly taken from School and many times from the Shop than to the Councels of so many Cardinals us'd and accustom'd to publick affairs and zealous of the Service of God That they should command that know not how to command and they be forc'd to obey those they ought in all equity to command That the foreign and extraneous Nephews should have freer and more uninterrupted access to the Vatican than the Cardinals that are born in Rome Now if affairs be carry'd in this manner in the Court of Rome in respect of Spiritual and Temporal Things how can the Cardinals be properly call'd Princes that leave the Church in the hands of other people It is the Nephews that are the Princes that hold the Patrimony of Saint Peter in their possession that divide it from the Church without any resistance and appropriate it as a Patrimony for their particular Families Nor ought the Nephews on the other side to permit seeing they have the authority in them the Cardinals to bear the Title of Princes of the Church lest very ill consequences should follow They have no other right of Dominion over them than by Usurpation and Tyranny and Tyranny is sometimes rais'd above the Majesty of Princes Now if the Cardinals be Princes of the Church without any Soveraignty the Nephews that have got that Soveraignty without any title must be Tyrants and therefore to remove this inconvenience it is necessary either to leave the Dominion of the Church to the Cardinals that have the Title or to give the Nephews the Title that have the Power already and exercise it with great Authority There is not a Heretick a Gentile a Jew a Catholick nor a Protestant but knows the Government of the Church by the Nephews is Tyrannical because the Authority they have to govern it is deriv'd only from the Popes who have no Authority to dispose of that which belongs legally to the Cardinals Christ as if on purpose to prevent disputes said expresly when he gave the power of the Keyes to Saint Peter Tibi dabo claves Regni coelorum observe the word Tibi to Thee that is to Peter I give the Keyes of my Church and not to his Nephews It is my pleasure that you Command and give Laws not your Relations and Kindred Tibi dabo claves Regni coelorum And therefore Saint Peter who understood his duty very well would never admit any of his own Relations to the Government of the Church but only such as were call'd by the Divine mouth of our most blessed Saviour Now a dayes the Popes proceed quite contrary glossing as they please upon the Gospel robbing them as soon as they are entred into the Vatican of all their Authority and giving it to their Nephews and instead of governing the Church with the assistance of the Cardinals in whom the power is directly from our Saviour they govern with the assistance of their Nephews that cannot with any justice enter into the Vatican nor take possession of an Authority that belongs only to the Cardinals It is clear the Cardinals are the true successors of the Apostles so that if the Apostles receiv'd none of their Jurisdiction from Saint Peter but immediately from God and if Saint Peter did never command them neither can nor ought the Popes to command the Cardinals nor are they oblig'd to obey them in what relates to the Government of the Church seeing they have as much power in those affairs as the Popes For my part when I shall see the Popes hold the same correspondence with the Cardinals that Saint Peter did with the Apostles I shall believe them true Popes so on the other side I shall believe the Cardinals true Princes of the Holy Church when I shall see them replete with holy zeal and labouring for the recovery of that Jurisidiction which hath been so unjustly taken from them If they shall at any time be restor'd to the exercise of that Authority they formerly for several ages possess'd they will make the Popes the Church and themselves happy and fortunate and bless'd themselves bless'd because that respect which at present is given by the Faithfull to the Purple only will be kindled in the hearts of all Christendom and break out into a flame of devotion to behold them with such passion and solicitousness endeavouring the good of Christianity the Church fortunate because it shall be no more worryed nor tormented with the tongues and pens of Historians but see every day new Christians sprouting up in her bosom And lastly the Popes shall be happy in having Companions in the care of the Flock of Christ in discharging themselves of a part of that burthen that is not to be sustain'd by one but with great danger of sinking under it Let not the Cardinals therefore any longer delay the wresting again that Dominion out of the hands of the Nephews that by Divine
extracted from their own books which are Printed by the Permission and Approbation of the Superiours of their Society Written in French by a Serbon Doctor and faithfully Englished in Folio Il CARDINALISMO di Santa Chiesa OR THE HISTORY OF CARDINALS In III. Parts PART I. BOOK I. The Contents In which is discoursed concerning the weakness of Humane Vnderstanding The manner of God's speaking to Men in old time and at present The Excellencies of the H. Scripture How R. Catholicks live in Protestant Countries and Protestants in those of R. Catholicks Of turning from one Religion to another Of those who relinquish the Church wherein they were born and know not for what reason The promiscuous admission of Doctors in the Vniversitie of Valenza applyed by a Protestant Preacher in discourse with a R. Catholick Of some Missionary Priests who receive licentious persons for Converts What answers the Priests and Friars of Italy make to their Superiors when these go about to punish their Miscarriages An Example of a certain Florentine who went to Geneva to change his Religion Another of a Neapolitane to the same purpose Of those Missionary Priests who buy their Faculty of Mission from some Courtier at Rome What remedy is requisite in these matters Of the Protestant Ministers who are contented to live in their Pastoral charge without thrusting themselves into matters of State Of Liberty of Conscience so much talk'd of amongst Christians What Authority the Emperors and Magistrates had over Church-men in the Primitive times In what particulars the several parties of Christian Professors lament their miseries in these dayes Of the zeal of Princes towards their Subjects What Effect the Magistrate's diligence in visiting the people's Actions produceth Of the neglect of Princes in observing the wayes and proceedings of Church-men How the respect given antiently by the people to Princes and Magistrates differs from what is given to them at this day Of Church-men who assume authority to pry into the actions of Soveraign Princes A Parallel between the Princes and people in reference to the Exercise of Religion Of the Policy of Church-men how exquisite to preserve their Grandeur Some Examples of Preachers as to the matter of Ecclesiastical Grandeur Of the disaffection of Ecclesiasticks to the Soveraignty of Princes Of some Differences wont to arise between R. Catholicks and Protestants in the Elections of Preachers The Example of Moses appointed a Preacher to Pharoah Of the Vigilance of France in maintaining the Gallicane Rites Of a Book printed at Rome in diminution of the Soveraignty of Princes The Jesuites question'd by the Parliament of Paris concerning the Impression of the said Book Their Answer to the Parliament The great Devotion of the Venetians to the service of God and the preservation of their Liberties and Privileges Of some pretendedly scrupulous whâ— blame the Venetians for being too jealous of their Soveraignty Of the danger wherein all Princes would be were it not for the resistance which France and Venice make to the ambition of Church-men Of some discourses concerning the Authority of the Pope Of Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical and Temporal compared together What effects the Excommunication of the Venetians by Paul V. produc'd to the Church Of the blame those Popes incurr who by their Excommunications forbid Subjects to obey their Natural Princes What Obedience both people and Magistrates owe to the Pope The Opinion of a Dominican Divine The heady Opinions of the Roman Divines concerning the Popes Authority The subjection of such Princes as are constrained by the Pope to obey the caprichio of those Divines who write accommodately to the Pope's humour How easily the Popes may Excommunicate Soveraign Princes and what mischief that easiness produceth How the Popes deal with Princes who have deserv'd well of the Church The chief causes which mov'd Paul V. and Urban VIII to thunder out Excommunications against the Venetians the Commonwealth of Lucca and the Duke of Parma In what manner the Pope ought to be honour'd by Princes and their people Of the difference betwixt being of the Church in the dayes of the Apostles and now Of the effects wrought in the persons of Popes by the H. Ghost Of the Offences arising daily between Popes and Princes by reason of the misdemeanours of Churchmen VVhat great fear Popes of the Primitive Church had of falling into any Error prejudicial to the publick good of Christendome How little now adayes they regard the Vniversal Good Of the great zeal wherewith of old they exercis'd their Pastoral charge VVhat Esteem all people had of Popes in consideration of their holy Lives VVhat kind of persons ascend the Papal Throne in these times VVhat persecutions they suffer who either by tongue or pen reprove the faults of Popes and Churchmen Of the praises attributed to the Popes by some writers Of the Flatteries which sound well in the Popes ears Of those who are look'd upon well or ill by the Pope Of those who write of the Pope's Impeccability Sâ—me Reasons and Instances proving the Pope fallible like other men Some Conclusions and Disputes maintain'd at Paris by the Jesuits in defence of the Popes power and Infallibility The cause why Popes are deficient in Miracles The corruption of the Age. Some deserving persons kept farr from the Court. Of the scandals committed by Churchmen in Rome Of a Bull of Boniface VIII Of an Opinion written by John XXII VVhat was the judgement of Paul II. concerning the Infallibility of the Pope Of a Book written by Pope Adrian VI. The Error Princes commit in suffering publick disputes touching the Popes Infallibility to be held in their Dominions Of some disgusts given by Alexander VII to the most Christian King A Bull put forth by the said Alexander against some Decrees of the Parliament of Paris which rejected the Popes Infallibility The censure of the Faculty of Sorbonne of writings which defended the Papal Infallibity Of Odoardo Farness Duke of Parma who of a friend became an Enemy to Urban VVhat the Author thinks the Pope conceives of him The Popes desire that no Pens were in the world but those which write in their favour Of the Rodomontadoes which the Roman Theologues write in magnification of the Pope The Opinion of a certain Theologue That a Pope cannot be damn'd though never so wicked The Impeccability of the Pope which the Jesuits begin to teach Of the Opinion of those who hold the Pope not subject to General Councils Of the Title of Eternity which some Flatterers would apply to the person of the Pope The Obligation of people to reverence and honour the Popes whilst they are good and to blame and avoid them when they are wicked Divers other particulars touching the Popes Grandeur THE dulness of Humane Understanding renders us uncapable of comprehending the mysterious conduct of Divine Providence whose Counsels and Designs are as to us involv'd in a most profound night of impenetrable Obscurity The Apostle St. Paul after a Transport even into
business was the salvation of his Soul In the Primitive Church the Popes as may be seen in their lives did not intermeddle or pry into any bodies actions but for the advantage of the Church that the Bishops might be holy in their conversations as their function was holy and the Sacraments administred with decency In those dayes the Bishops made the Election to vacant Bishopricks and by degrees came in Cardinals who also had the creation of Cardinals There was no discourse then but of the miraculous Sanctity of the Popes No importunity of their Kindred pressing and soliciting them to turn out such a good man and advance a much wickeder to his place It was then the Glory of the Pope to be call'd the head of the Christian Common-wealth and indeed the Counsels Consistories and Synods having the Election of all Officers and the disposal of all Dignities it was no other but a Commonwealth but how the present Writers in their Volumes can call Christendom a Republick I cannot understand whilst it is enslay'd to his Holiness and under the Tyranny of his Arms Excommunications and Inquisitions and forc'd by the irrational opinions of Priests to an adoration of the Pope in Rome as if he were a God in Heaven It were much to be desir'd and would be much to the advantage of the Church if that motu proprio or Arbitrary power of the Pope were taken away Christendome reduc'd again to a Republique and the Church set once more at Liberty I mean if the Election of Cardinals were performed as secretly as possible in the Consistory by the Cardinals themselves and so that of Bishops by a Provincial Synod to be call'd upon the death or translation of any of them or if that should be too expensive by the Consistory of Cardinals and not left to the single disposition of the Pope who regards nothing but the interest and satisfaction of his Family When Judas his place amongst the Apostles became void St. Peter from whom the Popes derive the power of the Keys proceeded not to the nomination of another himself or declar'd his Successor without more adoe but he call'd the Colledge of Apostles together by whose Lots St. Mathew was chosen to succeed him without any mention of St. Peter or of any bodyes Preceedency there The Apostles were all first and all last without any difference of priority But this Chapter is left out of their Bibles they will read nothing but for their own advantage And this is manifest because when a Cardinal dyes the Pope calls not the Colledge of Cardinals together to create a Successor but in spight of the example of the Apostles in spight of all Justice and Equity he chooses one himself and declares him Cardinal usurping in this manner the right of the Cardinals who are Successors to the Apostles also and to whom that right of Election doth belong This inconvenience seems at first sight very hard to be remedyed but upon serious consideration it will be easie For in the vacancy of the Chair when they are Absolute and Supream when the Church is a kind of Republick and all the Jurisdiction is in their hands what should hinder them if they had any regard to their lawfull and just Privileges from resuming that power which they have been robb'd of and constraining his Holiness to confirm it Would the Cardinals but once undertake this those Princes that have any zeal for the liberty of the Church would not fail to undertake it too and second them with Arms upon occasion as the Emperours both of the East and West have formerly done then they might new model the Laws settle the preceedency of the Synods and Consistories before the Pope as it was in the Primitive dayes renounce the Popes Decrees and establish their own declare him as an Apostle indeed amongst the rest of the Apostles but not as a God and in short clip the wings of his Authority so as to leave him Head only of a Commonwealth Nor indeed were this well executed would the Popes have any reason to complain for what can they pretend but that they be allow'd as much Authority as St. Peter had and why should not the Cardinals have as much as the rest of the Apostles whose true Heirs they are if the Pope therefore be as St. Peter why should not they be as the rest of the Apostles I have said before that to fill up the vacancy that was made by the Treason of Judas St. Peter did not by his Papal Authority make Election of another but by the Prayers and Assembly of the rest of the Apostles who were as it were the Pilots and Steers-men in the Ship of the Church Moreover Christ being dead St. Peter could not hope for any greater Authority than he had left him in these words What thou bindest on Earth shall be bound in Heaven so as from that time he had power to exercise his authority which say they was to preside in Elections to command in their Assemblies and to exercise over the Apostles the same authority which the Popes do now over the Cardinals But in those dayes things were well manag'd however they go now Then the Church was truly Apostolical and obedient exactly to the Laws of the Apostles now it is Roman and conformable only to the Interest or Capriccio of the Pope St. Peter then had no money to distribute nor no offices to bestow and therefore there were no books nor no Authors to be found that flatter'd him or attributed more to him than Christ had given him now they are so rich and have so many preferments to bestow that they can debauch their Divines and make them write as they please In that age there was nothing but poverty and piety in this there is nothing but craftiness and wealth then there was nothing but Christ in the thoughts of St. Peter and the Apostles and now in the Popes minds there is nothing but their Nephews It is not to be found in any place of the Scripture that St. Peter commanded the rest of the Apostles or that they acknowledg'd him head of the Church or Superior to themselves Whereas on the contrary 't is to be seen in the Acts of the Apostles that Peter was sent by the rest of the Apostles in the company of St. John to preach the Gospel in Samaria and St. Paul not only writes that he was not esteem'd inferiour to the best of the Apostles but he went up and down ordering all things as he thought necessary for the advantage of the Church without communicating any thing with St. Peter of what he judg'd convenient to do Things being so upon what grounds is it that the Popes keep the Cardinals at that distance Christ recommended his Church to the Apostles in general without any exception as appears by those words in St. John As my Father sent me so have I also sent you and whose sins soever you pardon shall be pardon'd and again in
of the Church founded by our Saviour and propagated by the Apostles thorough the whole world in great Sanctity and Holiness yet with a possibility of falling otherwise forasmuch as the Church consists of men only it would have been necessary to have Sanctify'd them all both Ecclesiastick and Secular In Rome they speak with great Reverence of the Councel of Trent the Divines and Preachers crying it up as a thing absolutely infallible Yet the Pope makes no bones to break and violate the Decrees establish'd by so many venerable men and the unanimous consent of all the Churches in Christendom dispensing with things at his own pleasure It is not many years since I obtain'd a dispensation for a friend of mine in a thing forbidden expresly in two Sessions of that Councel and all for the sum of ten Crowns and some little bribe by the bye to a Clark in the Registers Office a friend in Court being as necessary in Rome as a penny in a mans purse Those the Church of Rome call Hereticks cannot hear with patience that the Pope alone should have authority to defeat and invalidate in a moment what a General Assembly of the Church has been so many years about A certain Priest discoursing one day with a Protestant of France with design to draw him over to the Church of Rome he thought he had brought him into a very hopefull way when the Protestant had told him that all the Protestants in France would submit themselves to the Pope if the Pope would submit himself to the Councels to which the Priest reply'd it will be necessary then a Councel be call'd and such rules establish'd by common consent as shall be thought necessary for the Government of the Church to which the Protestant reply'd a little fiercely How a Devil will the Pope observe the Decrees of a Councel that cannot be kept from violating the Praecepts of the Gospel but if you will undertake to bring the Pope to a submission to them I do not question to convert all of my Religion to the Pope for to tell you the truth Sir I hold one as feasible as the other At first sight indeed it appears something probable that though a particular Church may err yet in respect that Christ has promised where two or three are met together in his name he will be in the midst of them and that in this case there are not only two or three but two or three hundred and those choice men and select for their Piety and Learning it seems not impossible I say but a Congregation Consistory or Councel compos'd of the chief Heads and Governours of all the Churches in general may be infallible Were there a Councel call'd in the name of Christ only and for the real interest of the Church and did it consist of such Members and no other as had their eyes fix'd wholly upon Heaven I could almost acknowledge that Councel infallible but we know very well and our constant experience confirms it that passion blood-thirstiness interest ambition desire of dignity capriciousness in the Prelats Bishops Cardinals and Popes are the principal things that sway in Councels so as it is manifest Christ is not in their hearts and where he is not to direct them there can be no infallibility The Church of Israel was reputed even to the death of our Saviour a good and a holy Church for which reason Christ himself convers'd often with the Scribes and Pharisees rebuking such as profan'd their Temples with their buying and selling not with words only but blows declaiming against them that they had made his Fathers house a Den of Thieves His heart not being able to endure that they should use that place as a Market where the Jews met dayly to sing praises to their God The Scribes and Pharisees of the Jewish Church when there was any tumult or division amongst the people about the works our Saviour had wrought some believing them miraculous and others not they met in Councel with the Principal Rulers and Governours and having debated upon all the works he had wrought in Judea after long argumentation and dispute they concluded and condemned him as a Seducer and a Blasphemer and that was the result of that Councel of the Jews Many Councels there have been in the Christian Church that have not only err'd but undone and revoak'd what another had Decreed so as several of them have been declar'd Null though the Church had made use of their Statutes many years as in the late Councel of Trent there were four others condemn'd so as the Councel of the Apostles was the only infallible Councel that ever was in the Church and that because it was manag'd and directed immediately by the Holy Ghost according to Christ's promise as is recorded in the Gospel of St. John But here is one question will arise the solution of which would be a great satisfaction to the Reader and that is whether Anabaptists and others that have their several Religions and Sects apart may in reason challenge the honourable Title of a Church some of them conforming themselves to the documents of the Scripture and drawing the rules of their conversations from thence others and the more wicked spinning out their own methods and ordinances out of their own fancies and yet not very dissimular to the direction of the Gospel it being as it were proper to mankind to guild and colour over evil with pretences of good Many there are that believe that our Saviour in those words In my Fathers House are many Mansions intended to comprehend all the Church Militant and that he did not mean it as a figure only of the Celestial Beatitude for which cause he drove the Buyers and Sellers as I have said before out of the Temple calling it his Fathers house because in that the Jews celebrated all their Holy and Divine Functions that were necessary to give the form to a true Church Militant If it be so it must needs be acknowledg'd there is but one true Church that can be call'd justly the house of God though there may be several Chambers and Mansions divided from one another that may pass under that name The Church of Rome refuses to give the Title of Church to any but it self as if there was no Church in being but that cousening and deluding its self in the very Title they assume for by calling themselves the Church of Rome they do tacitely suppose there is some other Church that is not of Rome It is certain and beyond all dispute that all the Councels and Assemblies of Hereticks may be call'd Churches but with the distinctions of corrupt and incorrupt of sound and unsound of polluted and pure for a man though afflicted with never so many diseases back and blew with never so many stripes eaten up as it were with worms and putrifaction ceases not notwithstanding to remain a man till the Soul be separated from his Body though otherwise he may
have lost something of his shape In like manner the Title Cof hurch cannot without violence or ignorance in Religion be taken from those Churches who are stragled out of the right way and will not be subjected to their true Mother Lucifers Pride was such it tumbled him down headlong from Heaven into Hell yet he retains the Title of Angel with this difference only that he was then call'd an Angel of Light but now of Darkness The Church of Israel though over-whelm'd most miserably in Idolatry had the Title of Church continued to them still by the Prophets themselves but with the distinction of Good and Holy then of Wicked and Idolatrous after So as it ought to be sufficient for the Churchmen of Rome to allow them to be Churches though they think them deprav'd and though it be not impossible that those Churches they think so may be most holy and sound The matters of Religion appear so ordinary and low the simplest Ideot thinks himself a Master in them whereas indeed they are so deep and profound they are enough almost to break the brain as well as the sleep of the poor Christian that confounded with this scruple and that dispute is oftentimes forc'd to go on in his ignorance and precipitates himself into obscurities by the very means he was searching after light Every one believes his own Religion the best and that he is predestinated to be saved but his Neighbour to be damned If you enquire of a Roman Catholick he will assure you with plenty of asseverations that there is no Salvation out of that Pale Ask a Lutheran of his and he will tell you the true way to Heaven is his way And so the Calvenist with great Learning and no few Texts of Scripture will perswade you his Doctrine comes nearest the Apostles A certain Friend of mine whose head is full of those niceties in Religion being in a merry humour told me one day if he might have his wish he would wish himself in Paradice for one day and in Hell for a moneth I enquir'd of him the reason why his stay in Paradice should be so short he reply'd That he would fain be satisfy'd which Religion sent most souls to Heaven and which most to Hell that in Paradice he knew there were no throngs and therefore he could dispatch there in a day but that Hell was better planted and would require a longer visit I ask'd him why he would prophane his own Religion with such discourse he answer'd Dear Friend to tell you the truth I am of opinion that here below it is impossible to be satisfy'd who shall be saved and who not because for ought we know they that appear most beautifull in this world may be most deform'd in the next and though we look upon blackness here as a defect yet there as amongst the Moors it may be counted a perfection He stopt there and I made some reflections by the bye upon his railery yet certainly that providence that governs the World has reserv'd the knowledge of Salvation and Damnation as a secret to himself to prevent those censures that are yet too frequent among Christians some condemning this man some saving of that as if either of them were in the power of Man I am of opinion by the leave of the Divines both Protestant and Papist that as to their Fundamentals all Religions are good yet withall I believe there is none of them without their defects and corruptions The Catholick holds the Protestant Church for a Compendium of Hell but for what reason marry they cannot tell and it is best of all that they cannot But what follows when any of those that are so much possess'd against it by the violence of their Preachers who cry out against them in their Pulpits as if they had Horns upon their heads like the Devil have occasion to travel and converse amongst them they are amaz'd and confounded to see there is no such things amongst them that their practices are honest their preaching against vice the Psalms of David their musick that for the better instruction of the people they read the Scriptures in their own tongue and that swearing and blasphemy is punish'd severely And this is that Church the Catholick calls the Epitome of Hell and the wickedest Society amongst men I will not say notwithstanding but amongst them also there are some dissolute and prophane it is enough that as to the Essence of their Church and their Divine Service they are assured that the Catholicks themselves nay those very Priests that kindle and foment the differences betwixt them cannot but commend them when they see them The Protestant on the other side speaks against the Catholick with as much passion and zeal as against the Jews Though indeed for the most part their indignation is rather directed against the Pope than the Church as believing him the occasion of all their corruption But be it how it will they also are to blame when they censure the Catholick without distinction made betwixt the Church and the Pope The Church of Rome in respect of its original was good and holy and therefore with good reason St. Paul directed his first Epistle to the Romans The iniquity that is crept into it proceeds from the corruption of those that have polluted it Under ashes that seem extinct there many times lies fire conceal'd the outward appearance does not destroy the inward excellence A Vizard may give a man the similitude of a Beast but not the nature Let the disguise of sin which is that which makes Lucifer painted so deform'd be taken away and he will again become an Angel of Light If those abuses that are daily introduc'd into the Church of Rome sometimes by the Capriccio of the Pope sometimes by the fallacy of the Priest were but taken away let the Adversary say what he pleases I do not doubt but all the rest would be well For my part I am of opinion and will declare it let both Papist and Protestant take it never so ill that there is Salvation to be found in any Christian Church whatsoever provided they live piously according to the natural precepts of our consciences and the express directions in the Old and New Testament And on the other side I believe as confidently there is no Church but one may be damn'd in if we suffer the contrary corruption to prevail And this I write as an Historian and not a Divine About the beginning of May 1667. there was a Priest of the Countrey of the Grisons passing by this City was very curious to know the state of the Protestants enquiring of this man and of that and now and then having no capacity for greater he would fall into some little arguments or disputes about it A certain Advocate of Crimona a learned and exemplary man to whom also he was recommended gave him satisfaction immediately in all his scruples whether of curiosity or conscience and indeed he could not
have had better satisfaction from any body From general and more common discourse they came by degrees into some little dispute and after that into familiar The Priest at last having his curiosity inflamed by the readiness of the Advocate desir'd he would tell him what number he thought the Protestants might be The Advocate reply'd that was impossible but if one might judge by the Provinces and Dominions they were possess'd of they could not be less than forty Millions The Priest was amaz'd to hear them so numerous for being not over-well skill'd in matters of Religion no wonder if he could not see very far into business of State However he return'd this answer to the Advocate to his great satisfaction Sir the multitude of Protestants as you call them and of Hereticks as we proceeds not so much from any excellence in the Orders of their Church as from the defect and iniquity in the Governours of ours which is commonly too great And the Protestants beholding the luxury and dissoluteness of our Prelates but taking no notice of those blessed consequences that would follow were it govern'd according to those Holy Rules that were given at its first institution do upon this score grow numerous daily Whereas if our Cardinals Bishops and Religious men would like the Apostles as much as in them lay observe the Commandments of God the number of Catholicks would quickly encrease and the number of Protestants decline I was present at this time and surpriz'd to hear the Priest discourse in that manner however his words though spoke with some kind of hast and immaturity gave me occasion to reflect upon these conferences and arguments that happen'd daily betwixt the Protestant and Papist it being no hard matter to find out the defects both of the one side and the other Amongst these disputes both publick and private it seems impossible to point out the true Church every one boasting of his own and proving it from Scripture 'T is not many years since I also had the same curiosity breaking my brains as it were to inform my self in matters of Religion conceiving by the instruction of Learned men I might become a Master at length of those things that confounded me whilst I was but a Scholar But certainly I had better have been contented with my ignorance my inquiry did but confound me the more For the future I am resolv'd to leave all disputes and to believe that Church the best that is most conformable to the documents of the Gospel and gives most obedience to the Word of God When the Catholick is in combate with the Protestant in matters of Religion the solidest argument they have against them is to charge them as having imbrac'd a new and modern Religion and separated themselves from theirs that was more antient The Protestant returns his own argument upon him and pronounces himself the antienter of the two as retaining those Ceremonies and Orders only which the Apostles observ'd themselves and left in writing to the Church whereas the Catholick makes use of this Ceremony and that Ordinance brought in by this Pope and by that To which the Catholick replyes again We can shew you in the Bible in your own language and translation where St. Paul makes mention of the Church of Rome but you cannot shew us the least mention of the Church of Geneva that you admire so much The Protestant replyes to that Shew us any thing in St. Paul to the Romans of your Purgatory Mass Invocation of Saints or Adoration of the Pope St. Paul writ indeed to the Romans but not to the Pope so as you can expect no priviledge from thence because you obey the commands of the Pope sooner than the writings of St. Paul Besides St. Paul writ also to the Hebrews and if a Letter from the Apostles was enough they might as well plead it for their purity as you True it is Antiquity is a common sign yet the Anabaptists themselves and the most desperate Hereticks in the world will assert with great confidence their Church to be the antientest deducing its antiquity from our Saviour himself To confound the Hereticks therefore in their disputations one is not so much to insist upon the antiquity of his Church for they commonly do urge that against their Adversaries too besides such arguments would prove the Church to be nothing but a Custome which would be an errour disallow'd by our very Enemies who indeavour to prove us alwayes because Christ did not say I am a Custome but I am the truth There are many antient Families both in Italy and other Countries that derive themselves from Emperours Kings and Princes and I believe them Yet having lost those Kingdoms and Principalities the memory of their greatness serves for nothing but to increase their sadness for the loss of it What advantage is it to a Church to be admir'd for its antiquity if its present Condition does not correspond To what purpose is it to say I am descended from Christ if I observe not his Commands or to boast my self an Heir of the Apostles and never follow their Examples As often as I think of those Princes that intitle themselves to the Dominions that are in the possession of others and though they have no more Power nor Jurisdiction there than I have will by no means part with the Title so often do I think of the several Churches and Religions in Christendom that retain only the name but are in other things corrupt and abominable For example what other thing has the Church of Rome more than the bare honour of being mentioned in the Epistle of St. Paul As to other matters the Epistle was not writ on purpose for them though directed to them So also if the Protestant lives like a Devil 't is in vain to brag that he is descended from the Apostles In short we live in an age in which two Princes will contend perhaps for the Title of a Principality that possibly is in the possession of neither of them And the Catholick and Protestant will fall out and quarrel in defence of their Religions when there is nothing but name and title only in their possession As if the habit of a Monk were sufficient to make one But our Blessed Saviour to prevent occasion of error in a thing so necessary and that we might be able to distinguish betwixt the true Church and the false left us a clear Character as St. John testifies My Sheep know my Voice and follow me and in another place the same Evangelist he says to the same purpose If you abide my words you shall be my Disciples indeed That is the true Church and that the true Religion that with its whole heart and affection makes use of Davids direction Declina a malo fac bonum For my part I will not judge of the scruples of other Christians but this I must say I am glutted with the dayly controversies and disputes between the
Protestant and Catholick Churches to no purpose and so glutted as to make sport of them They will not make me a Saint and I suffer them not to come near my heart lest they should make me a Devil Let the Catholick Divines write as they think good and the Protestants do the same I am resolv'd to be unconcern'd and sit down with this Doctrine of St. Paul Non plus sapere quam oportet sapere sed sapere ad Sobrietatem And why should we go look for our Church in the Volumes of the Divines whether Protestant or Papist if we can find it out our selves in the Gospel of Christ This is to condemn our selves by our own folly to hire an other mans Horse to leap down a precipice withall to borrow Spectacles that we may see more plainly the way to our damnation and in short it is to believe our Divines have more Judgement than Christ and more Holiness than the Apostles The true Church of the Saints according to the true Doctrine of the Apostles consists in doing good and abstaining from evil to imitate our Saviour in good works And let the Divines alone with their new Opinions to make the present time conform to the antient and not suffer the modern to destroy the antient for if we walk not in the same way they did in the beginning antiquity does but distract the present proceedings And this puts me in mind of an Example no less moral than curious which I shall insert in this place In the time of Henry the Great a certain Protestant Prince invited the Popes Nuntio that was then in Paris to Supper The Nuntio refus'd the invitation excusing himself with many pretences but at last overcome by the Civility of the Prince he makes bold with his Ecclesiastical reasons that oblig'd him to the contrary and went with his whole Court to visit him In the Chamber they were to Sup the Prince had caused on one side of the Wall the twelve Apostles to be hung in excellent Tapistry and wrought with that Artifice they seem'd to want nothing but words to be alive but withall they were unshod ungirt ill habited and in every thing conformable to the Poverty of the Apostles On the other side with the same exactness he plac'd twelve Cardinals on Horse back cloathed in Scarlet their Trappings imbost very rich their Foot-cloth of Silk their Bridles of Gold and their Spurs of the finest Silver As soon as the Nuntio entred the Chamber casting his eyes about as one experienc'd in those things he presently apprehended there was some mystery in the business He was surpriz'd and could not but show some confusion in his looks however he counterfeited as much as he could turning his eyes this way and that way and pretending to look on every thing but the Hangings till at last having wash'd as is usual amongst great Persons the Prince observing he would needs set on the Apostles side that he might have them on his back and the Cardinals in his eye the Prince with no small Ceremony would perswade him to the other side telling him pleasantly in Italian but with the grace of a true Frenchman By your favour Sir do me not that disgrace to turn your back upon my Religion but turn it rather upon your own The Nuntio observing the Prince to smile he smil'd a little himself but it was but from the teeth outward however he reply'd immediately Your Excellence believes me of a Religion I am not of and your self of another you are not of neither To which the Prince answer'd facetiously Then there will be no difficulty in ending our Ceremonies the difference will be decided if every one takes which side he pleases And with this they sate down the Nuntio at the end of the Table where he had the prospect both of the Apostles and Cardinals too But for the Readers better understanding it will not be unnecessary to explain what the Nuntio meant when he told the Prince That his Excellence believ'd him to be of a Religion that he was not of and that he himself was not of that Religion he did believe I suppose he alluded thereby to the State of the Cardinalship and the exemplary life of the Apostles And therefore the Prince having desir'd him not to turn his back upon the Apostles but upon the Cardinals of whom he understood the Nuntio to be one the Nuntio that was no Cardinal reply'd that he was not of the Religion his Excellence took him to be and withall added a little sharply that the Prince himself was not of the Religion he suppos'd though the Prince had signify'd to the Nuntio that his Religion was Protestant and founded upon the Example and Doctrine of the Apostles The Princes words were smooth and deliver'd with a good grace yet no less pungent than the other they troubl'd the Nuntio a little but nothing so much as the unavoidable sight of those Hangings which he conceiv'd as indeed they were hung there in design Had it been any Nuntio but he they would have probably taken it so ill as to have left the Princes Supper to himself but this Nuntio being a prudent man and considering how inconvenient it would be for his affairs to disgust the Prince at that time he past away the Supper very well with the variety of dishes driving both the Pictures and Expressions out of his mind At Rome however it was ill taken and the Nuntio severely rebuk'd by the Pope for supping with a Heretick but he was so well acquainted in the Policies of the World and the Intrigues of the Court of Rome that he knew well enough how to excuse himself to his Holyness The Cardinals truly and the Prelates in the Church of Rome are so exorbitant in their Expences not only for their Cloaths and Liveries but their Diet and Houses that the Protestants who are alwayes prying and making their observations cannot believe that Church to be good in which they find such excess of Luxury and Pride For it is most certain and most Catholicks will confess it that it is not the outward Pomp and Splendor of a Church that denotes it a true one as some of their Divines would maintain And indeed Christ did not promise Pomp Magnificence Gold Riches or Honour to his Church but Poverty Affliction and Persecution For my part I believe that the truest Church in which the poor Members are the least bewitch'd and carried away with the interest of the World especially the Ecclesiasticks who ought to give example insomuch as in my judgement there are many Catholicks in Rome of very good reason that live there and yet believe Rome to be the most polluted and defil'd Church in the Universe and for what cause think you Because they find the Prelates and Popes themselves so wedg'd and link'd to Secular advantages they have not time to think upon God nor Religion nor Faith In the year 1657. being by accident at Rome to see the
they became forc'd to encounter the Heresies of Menander the Samaritan Ebioni and Cherinthus obstinate Hereticks and perverse Adversaries to the Apostles and so popular they denominated their parties with their own several Names and gave the Church great trouble and perplexity But St. John who writ his Epistles about that time though he was at a great distance by the assistance of some of his Disciples refuted their false Doctrine and silenc'd them After them succeeded Carpocrates of Alexandria and Epiphanes his son the Authors of the damnable Heresie of the Gnosticks and the Jews were about the same time routed out of Jerusalem and St. Mark made Bishop thereof about the year 137. In the year 161. Marcion the Heretick gave great disturbance to the Church but he was encounter'd and partly convinc'd by Bardesanus and Rodosianus two learned men and well skill'd in the Holy Scriptures but he was totally refuted by Musanus and Modestus who writ against Tatianus the Syrian an impious Heretick and a great sower of dissension amongst young Christians In the year 174. there sprang up a new Heresie by the means of Montanus Phrygius which was afterwards call'd the Cataphrygian Heresie and there were some worse Hereticks than himself joyn'd with him but it pleas'd God by opposing the Learning and Sanctity of Irenaus Bishop of Lyons against it to stop the violence of that torrent with the Books he writ in 184. Against which Artemonus one of the greatest Hereticks of that age writ also And in the year 246. there were new Hereticks broach'd in Arabia that were call'd Arabians but they were in a short time suppress'd by the industry of St. Origen The Clergy being divided Novatianus the Roman was by faction created Antipope in opposition to Cornelius which was the occasion of the first Schism in the Church besides the fall of two Bishops Basilides Astaniansis and Martialis Emeritensis and therefore to remedy and reconcile those disturbances that gave great scandal to Christendom it was thought necessary a General Council should be call'd In the year 258. Noetus and Sabellius appear'd Hereticks both of them in their Doctrine and arrogant in their Lives In 270. Paulus Samosatenus discover'd himself who was so much the more scandalous in his Heresie by how much he had been formerly a stout propugnor of the Faith But he was convinc'd by Machion a Priest of Antioch a learned man and one that writ several things with great judgement towards unity in the Church The second Schism began in Africa and was call'd the Schism of the Donatists Antro a Priest of Alexandria from whom the Heresie of the Arrians had its original began to preach it up in the year 324. and to prevent the spreading of those execrable blasphemies a General Council was call'd because this Heresie of the Arrians allowing I know not what liberty in their lives had perverted and debauch'd several Bishops from the Church of Christ And indeed the Church was never in that danger of being swallow'd up and submerg'd as in the dayes of Arrius in so much as there was nothing but tears to be seen in the eyes of the Saints that stood firm according to that expression Ingemiscens orbis terrarum Arrianum se esse miratus est The third Schism was betwixt Damasus and Vrsicinus in the year 366. and though that also had perverted the good orders in the Church yet it was inconsiderable in comparison of what the Church suffered in the year 407. there being then Heresies on foot and Rome sack'd at the same time by Alaricus King of the Goths who gave shelter and protection to those Hereticks that afflicted the Church About this time Venice was begun to be built by those that fled from the fury of the Goths and particularly of Attila whose actions were so barbarous he was call'd and glory'd in it Flagellum Dei as if by laying the foundation of Venice God Almighty intended to demonstrate the effect of his Divine Providence raising up as it were by Miracle a Republique that should be a bulwork of defence not to the liberties of Italy only but of all the Church of Christ and indeed her actions have express'd her so ever since having been alwayes ready to spend the blood of her dearest Citizens in defence of Christendome According as Heresie protected by several Princes and embrac'd by several great Cities did propagate and increase and according as any new and more dangerous sprung up the Church apply'd all seasonable and miraculous remedies to repell their audacity but in spight of all that could be done they were forc'd to call a general Councel at Constantinople to suppress the Heresie of the Monothelites which they condemn'd there and made many good Laws for the better regiment of the Church In short 't is not to be comprehended by humane imagination with how many sorts of Heresies and Schisms the Church of God in those dayes was afflicted and torn being for eight hundred years together in perpetual perplexity during which time several Councels and Synods both general and particular were call'd more especially two at Rome one at Antioch two at Carthage one of them to determine whether Hereticks that repented and would return again to the Church were to be rebaptiz'd or not the other to conclude upon the manner of baptizing of Infants in cases of necessity two more there were in Asia one in Licaonia the other in Phrygia to consult upon the manner of receiving such Hereticks into the Church again as had a desire to return which cost great argument and dispute before it could be concluded During these eight hundred years the Church was expos'd to several Persecutions under the Tyranny of several Emperours but nine of them were more bloody than the rest for thrusting and tearing into the very bowels of the Church the poor Saints were constrained either to lay themselves down as Sacrifices at the feet of their Persecutors or to fly from their barbarity to the protection of the Woods But that just God who had promis'd the Gates of Hell should never prevail against the Glory of his Church sent Charles the Son of Pipin King of France as a special gift from Heaven to command the Empire of the West Which being found and acknowledg'd by the Romans they ordered these words to be publiquely Proclaim'd thorough all the Streets in Rome To Charles the Great the most Pious and Peaceful Emperour Created by God be Life and Victory The Church that for so many years had been afflicted with Heresies and Schisms Wars both Intestine and Foreign Ecclesiastick and Civil found not only ease and protection under the Government of this great Emperour but was propagated exceedingly most of all the Cities of Europe especially in Italy and France abounding with multitudes of new Christans won by the example of Charles who thought the Christian Faith more glory to him than his Crown by the force of his Arms and the zeal of his Heart
their Memorials and Petitions not to say Bribes that his Holiness would graciously confer the Cassock of a Prelat upon them their humility being turn'd into pride and their meekness into magnificence Oh how many Families of them would beg their bread of those very people they despise had not this great wealth been brought into the Church and with suitable dignity been conferr'd upon the Clergy There is not in the whole Universe a Court more capable nor more likely to enable and enrich a mean family than Rome and all by its introducing so great a number of Prelats into the Church for every man being by natural instinct desirous of the advancement of his own family betakes himself to Rome with confidence he shall raise himself one day to some considerable dignity There are several qualities and degrees in Rome all of them together make up that Lather as it were by which the Cardinalship is to be ascended to there being none at present able to make one hope for a greater dignity To aspire to so great an honour is an argument of great ambition in the heart of that man nor can any man of the Gown desire greater advancement in this Age than to be made a Cardinal because with the dignity he receives an immediate preheminence over all those that were his Companions before is made a Brother of Gods Vicegerent upon the Earth and ally's himself with what Kings or Princes he pleases every one being ambitious to call a Cardinal his Couzen. Caesar for a long time had a desire to wear a perpetual Lawrell but his desire is nothing to that ardor and fury wherewith the Prelats of Italy and all Europe do aspire to so eminent a dignity How deep a place this desire has got in the hearts of the Prelats may be argued from hence that they oftentimes dye with joy that they have arriv'd at such honor that others dye for sorrow that they cannot attain it and others think their labour well bestow'd if by forty years fawning upon this Prelat and that they can but reach it last For prevention of contempt which usually accompanies common things they have with good reason annex'd both to their Secular and Ecclesiastical Dignities certain Titles of honour not only that they might be known to the people but to communicate and infuse into their hearts such an awe and respect as is due to their Majesty and Power But the Popes have of late years very much exceeded in aggrandizing the Cardinals but the smoak is more than the meat for the Popes incroaching hourly upon the real authority that belongs to the Cardinals they have heap'd great Titles of Majesty upon them that they might not at one time be cheated of both Some there are that believe the dignity of Cardinals had their beginning from the very foundation of the Church agreeable to what Eugenius quartus intimates in a Letter to Henry Arch-Bishop of Canterbury besides whom a great number of Canonical Authors have believ'd they were instituted by him that irrigated the foundation of the Church with his own blood that the Sacred Purple might flourish therein as I have read and heard preach'd in St. Peters in Rome But 't is manifest all that is but flattery for we know the Illustrious Title of Cardinal with which the Popes have invested the chief of the Church was not in use till the time of Pope Silvester who call'd them Cardinals as hinges upon which the Church Militant was to turn The design of Silvester was good intending thereby to put the Cardinals in mind that if they would render themselves worthy of the esteem they expected they ought as Senators both Spiritual and Temporal of that Commonwealth have the fear of God and a zeal for the Flock of Christ in their minds and by the piety and exemplariness of their Conversation provoke and excite other Christians to the reformation of theirs St. Peter 't is true had Linus Cletus Clement Anacletus Mark the Evangelist and others as his Assistants and most Religiously executing the Offices they were under bearing a great share in the Government and Superintendency over the whole Church but the name of Cardinals was not given them nor as then known There are furthermore divers antient Records that tell us that Pope Cletus did institute five and twenty Titular Priests and Anacletus seven Deacons in commemoration of those instituted by the Apostles in the Infancy of the Church which were without doubt the first Titles that were conferr'd and since conserv'd by the Cardinals Pope Evaristus who succeeded Anacletus confirm'd that holy institution and to render it the more compleat he limited and distinguish'd the several places and Parishes that were assigned to the Government of those first Ministers of State in the Church In the year 156. Saint Higinus being Pope and desirous to give a greater and more august form to his Clergy he divided them into orders and degrees placing one under the other in a just rule of Inferiority and Superiority The chief were call'd Cardinals as principals at the first foundation of orders in the Church the rest had only Priest and Deacon for their Titles Some there were that have believ'd and some there be that do think so still that in the Primitive times Bishops had the Title of Cardinals but they do not assure us whether that name was given them in the Papacy of Higinus or of some other Pope However that shows the super-intendency they had over the rest of the Priests and Deacons of the Church as they had over the rest that had the care of particular Parishes They add also that they were distinguish'd in that manner by reason of their Titles that the Cardinal Bishops had belonging to their Titles the principal Churches both without and within Rome to the number of eighteen but they were afterwards reduc'd to six that the Cardinals had assign'd to them the other Parochial Churches and Cimeteries in Rome where the Priests that were under them did execute their several charges with great Decorum their particular offices consisting in the care of Souls in the admistration of the Sacraments of the Church and in a charitable regard of the Burial of the Dead and of Martyrs The Cardinal Deacons had the Hospitals and other Religious houses assigned to them whilst the simple Deacons under them had the oversight of Orphans Widows and the Poor The Chapels that were ordinarily united to these Religious houses being called Deaconries and in the beginning exceeded not the number of seven according to the number of the Cardinal Deacons and the number of Parishes remaining in Rome after the dismal Conflagration caus'd by Nero the Tyrant But it must needs be confess'd that with the revolution of time this first order and manner of Government founded principally upon actions and exercises of Piety have been very much chang'd so as by degrees both Bishops Priests and Deacons who compos'd the Sacred Colledge of the Church of
Christ began to be ambitious of the Title of Cardinals and for this reason Saint Silvester in the Councel held in Rome 324. call'd them so in common discriminating them by that Title from the rest of the Faithfull who began now to look upon the Cardinals as Cardinals indeed And it is clearly demonstrable by all these reasons that there were Cardinals in the very infancy of the Church and that in good esteem and veneration because they were alwayes possest of the most eminent and conspicuous dignities Their opinion does not please me at all that hold the Cardinals were nothing else but simple Curats distinguish'd by Titles or Parishes of Rome grounding that fancy upon an Epistle of Pope Gregory's in which he speaks of them as those that had the cure and inspection over the Parishes as likewise upon an Expression of Platina where he sayes that Leo the fourth degraded and depos'd a Cardinal from the Title of St. Marcellus for having been five years absent from his Parish But this the Order and Chronology of the Church History will clearly refute because in Saint Silvesters time they speak of the Grandeur of the Cardinals and then how can Platina's opinion be true How is it possible the Cardinals should be but simple Curats in the time of Pope Gregory who was above three hundred years after Saint Silvester and yet in Silvesters time be in great dignity and esteem It will not therefore be improper to inlarge a little and by an ampler description to satisfie in some measure the curiosity of the Reader for which reason I will give an account of what ever I have collected out of the most eminent Authors Religion truly was not made for places but for men however the Ministers of the Church have been alwayes distinguish'd by the offices in which they exercis'd their Ministry upon which consideration as they were more eminent or illustrious they were ordain'd Bishops or Priests or at least Deacons who were no more than Assistants and Coadjutors to the Bishops and Priests And the fourteenth Canon of the Councel of Nio Caesaria declares seven Deacons enough for the greatest City in Christendom The Church never wanted orders and degrees of dignities but had alwayes a distinction and separation of preferments in which every one co-operated according to his Knowledge or Zeal In the Common-wealth of Greece all offices were distinct Epaminondas commanded the Armies Pitagoras taught Socrates argued Lycurgus made Laws and Trasibolus executed without them so in this visible Monarchy of the Church some command others obey some pray others teach some sing others watch The Bishop Ordains the Priest Baptizes The Bishop Confirms the Priest Consecrates the Deacon distributes the Eucharist inspects the Ceremonies looks to the necessities of the Poor and sees that all people approach the Communion with requisite devotion In the Primitive times the Ministers were ordain'd according to the quality of their Cures Those in which the first Functions of Christianity were exercis'd viz. where most Gentiles were converted where the Word of God was Preach'd or where the Sacrament was administred were call'd by way of Excellence the Cardinal Churches A word taken from a Latin word which signifies a Hinge upon which a door turns importing that upon the vigilance and conduct of the Cardinals the whole service of God and the Church moves as upon a Hinge So that the Title of Cardinal was first given to the Places that is to the Cardinal Churches but apply'd afterwards to the persons that Govern'd them at first they were call'd The Holy Cardinal Churches but now Cardinals of the Holy Church And from hence was the original of Bishops Priests Deacons and Cardinals there being several Titles and Cardinal Churches in Rome The Priests that were Rectors over them were call'd Cardinal Priests and some time there were two or three at a time with the same Title as there are sometimes two or three together of principal dignity in some Collegial Churches In the like manner there were other Titles in several Quarters of the City of Rome which were call'd Deaconries where the Cardinals had their Residence and those that had the charge in the principal Churches in this quality were call'd Cardinal Deacons because of their residence in the Deaconry So also the six Bishops chosen out of all the Bishops of Christendome for the Election of the Pope were chosen in the same order but with this condition that the Election of the Pope should not be their only Province but that they should be assistant to them in their private and general Councels and be call'd Cardinal Bishops In the Infancy of the Church these Titles were not us'd notwithstanding in the Apostles dayes and for some Ages after there was no mention of Cardinal Churches nor Cardinal Ministers The Priests and Deacons were then forc'd to exercise their Ministry in Caves and the privatest places they could find to evade the persecution of those times so that there could be no such Titles allow'd all of them living in unity the chief being ambitious to show himself as the least and every one congratulating the lowest as the first And whilst the Church was under this form of administration the Ministers having no other Titles amongst them but Brothers were assistant to one another in the distribution of the Sacrament and all other offices of the Church the light of the Gospel and the holiness of humility shin'd over all and for what reason Because there was not in those dayes the distinction of persons that there is now to the great scandal and prejudice of the Church Cornelius who liv'd in the year 200. writing to the Clergy in Rome he makes no mention but of Priests and Deacons and though indeed there was some sort of difference and distinction in their offices yet there was no disputes or emulations amongst them all of them living with great unanimity and all of them being Cardinals all of them Deacons and all of them Priests In the Election of Bishops and in their Councels the Priests and Deacons only assembled with the people so that many times great quarrels happen'd betwixt them and the people and in the year 356. there were six hundred slain in the City of Rome at the Election of Damascus and Vrsinus upon which it was forbidden by the general Councel at Laodicia that the people should have any voices for the future in the Election of Ministers and Prelats of the Church After the Church by the virtue of a long patience had overcome the persecutions of the Emperours trod Paganism and Idolatry under her feet and set up the Standards of Christianity upon the seven hills at Rome the number of Ministers began to increase out of which in process of time they chose the best and most learned for the Senate and Councel of the Church and so the distinction of places began they that had the greatest imployments were call'd Cardinals and they that had the lesser
and kissing your most sacred Feet From my house the 17 June 1664. Your Holiness's most humble most devoted and most obliged Servant G. Cardinal Sacchetti Oh how true is it that fire may be buried and preserved under ashes but with an effect contrary to the very nature of fire to what purpose is a spark of zeal in the breast of a Minister if he has not the devout courage to blow it up into a flame Where are now a dayes those Prophets that were not affraid to reprehend the faults of King David even to his own face God forgive those Cardinals that have render'd the Cardinalitial dignity so abject and timerous to say no worse that there is scarce any thing left of Greatness in it but the Title He who is silent at the iniquities of his Neighbour and exhorts him not to leave them he that may rebuke them with Authority and does it not gives not only manifest evidence of defect in his duty but charges himself clearly with the same faults as fearing to correct offences in other people lest his own some time or other should be found out and chastiz'd I do not doubt but the Cardinals may have judgement and conscience and insight enough to penetrate and discern the evils that for many years the Church has lain under and which are hourly multiply'd by the Nephews of the Popes I am satisfi'd that in the secret of their hearts they are afflicted to the very soul as often as they see the substance and subsistance imbezel'd that belongs to the poor Subjects of the Ecclesiastick State if those may be call'd Subjects that are every day like Slaves constrain'd to truckle to the barbarous insolencies of so many new Ministers that by the favour of the Nepotisme do revive as a man may say a new Nâ—ronisme of Tyranny I do certainly believe that the most zealous of the Cardinals are fully inform'd of the Scandals the Hereticks receive to see from time to time Gabels added to Bulls Taxes to Breves Tenths to Pensions Customes upon the People Impositions upon Religious Orders and the very ground it self where people are to be buried I am perswaded they cannot be ignorant of proceedings at Rome seeing there is not a Bishop at present but may thank Simony for his Mitre nor a Prelate nor other Minister of the Church that has not gain'd his preferment by money or interest They know they know very well almost all the Cardinals that they who embrace the Ecclesiastical habit in these dayes whether it be Secular or Regular they do it not to consecrate themselves to God but to gratifie their ambition and covetousness and to establish greater foundations to their hopes of which design they give daily and most evident tokens to the people But what advantage is it that they know it To what purpose is it if the Physician understands his Patients disease if he has not courage enough to apply such remedy as is necessary It seems to me an aggravation and renders the Cardinals more Criminal whilst they see the precipice the Church is upon and either take no care to deliver her or pretend they did not see it at all That one Brother should suffer another to run headlong upon his own destruction may be written in the Politicks of the World but there is no such toleration in the Law of God I would ask the Cardinals if they should see a Thief breaking in their presence into their Houses would they let him ransack and rifle all without speaking a word No certainly they would sooner awake all Rome to have him stopt and make the Judges thunder out their Proclamations for his apprehension though their loss was never so small Notwithstanding all this the Cardinals can behold the Church of Christ robb'd the people of the Church ruin'd the blood of the poor suck'd up the propriety of the City invaded and taken away to raise lofty and new Palaces for the Nephews yet dare not speak one word in behalf of the Publique for the recovery of the Poor for the edification of the People or for the glory of the Church but leave them all abandon'd to destruction But they are not without their excuses using alwayes a hundred pretences to conceal their hypocrisies and indeed the people that judge every thing by appearance are satisfi'd with the multitude of excuses the Cardinals bring to convince the World of their innocence and to make it appear they are not at all accessary to the Extorsions committed by the Nephews upon all the afflicted Subjects of the Ecclesiastick State They say but what Shall we say they disgust his Holiness the acknowledg'd Head of the Church and upon that score adored by the whole World Shall we oppose our selves to his pleasure the actions and resolutions of whose Government are directed by the Holy Spirit Shall we dare to make resistance against one before whose feet the greatest Monarchs do throw themselves with Reverence To these they adde many other excuses full of policy and cunning but they are not sufficient to satisfie Heaven and Earth too the Cardinals must give an account to God as well as the World To God I say in whose presence no excuse or pretence is receiv'd There are no Rhetorical flourishes no circumgiration of words no fictions or pretences there the Process is read openly there in which not only they which rob are condemn'd but they which connive that had ability to hinder it and did not and therefore it is that Saint Jerome sayes that those souls endure more pain that see themselves condemn'd for other peoples faults that they pretended not to see least they might disgust those who committed them than for their own proper offences And God grant the Cardinals be not of this number who I fear will be able to give but a small account of the dammage the Church does daily receive by the ill Government of the Popes that are themselves but a prey to their own ravenous Nephews Nor will all their excuses be able to clear them because our Redeemer knowing the secrets of all hearts will have his answers ready and perhaps reply to them in this manner Do you believe therefore that I am inferiour to your Pope because you are more fearfull of offending against his Courts that are but Temporal and momentary than mine that is most holy and eternal My Apostles were not affraid even in my own presence with great confidence to rebuke the good Woman who with a little oyl was come to refresh my feet after so long and so many journeys and you you can every day behold Assassinations Robberies Sackings Burnings in the Church my blood represented in the blood of the poor swallow'd down and devour'd my bowels in the bowels of the Church torn in pâ—â—ces my nourishment in the nourishment of the people perverted my Patrimony which is the Patrimony of Saint Peter misapply'd without speaking one word pretending not to know pretending not to see
on purpose to find a remedy in some measure for the disorders the Nepotismo occasion'd in the Church But their words were more than their deeds for though some were of opinion a definitive decree should be pass'd by which all succeeding Popes should be oblig'd from calling their Relations to Rome without the consent of the Sacred Colledge Nevertheless the major part thought it more convenient not to meddle in it at all lest they should give fresh occasion of scandal and derision to the Hereticks So that Pallavicino's Paper had no better success than the resolution of Cardinal Cena who had fancy'd to himself the extinguishment of the Nephews a â—â—diculâ—â—us fancy because in my iudgement the extinction of the Nephews would be a great prejudice to the common re 〈…〉 of Rome if the Pope was constrain'd to trust himself rather to the Councels of his Enemies than his friends and to introduce persons unknown to him into the Vatican The Duty of Cardinals as they are Senators of the Church should be to watch over the Nephews that of Governours they become not Princes of Keepers of the Patrimony of Saint Peter they prove not barbarous devourers of the very blood of Christ and indeed if the Cardinals pleas'd they might do wonders for the benefit of the Church Were they all unanimous for the destruction of all corruption they would give the Pope and his Nephews matter to think upon but they have no mind to it this for one consideration that for another this for this interest that for that so that faction and division ruines the Church and gives opportunity to the Popes in the mean time to prosecute the advancement of their own Families Some few years since the Cardinals amongst other Titles call'd themselves Princes of the Holy Church which gave sober men great occasion to wonder for my own part I look upon it as so strange and incongruous an usurpation I cannot tell which way to excuse it That they call themselves Senators of the Christian Commonwealth Counsellors of the Supreme Senate of Christ upon Earth Apostles of the Catholick Religion Assistants to Christs Vicar Supreme Ministers of the Gospel I can allow as what they may reasonably deserve but I know not how they can assume the Title of Princes of the Church Are they Princes that are many times used worse than Slaves by the Nephews Are they Princes that are forc'd to wait from morning to night not upon Christs Vicar but the Popes Nephews Are they Princes of the Church that know not so much as where her Treasure is Are they Princes of the Church that suffer her to be ransack'd and ravish'd before their own eyes Are they Princes that can see their Principalities destroy'd with so much patience Your true Princes from the rising to the setting of the Sun and from its setting to its rising again do study nothing more than the conservation of their proper Principalities they endeavour with all possible care the augmentation of the number of their Subjects they suffer not their people to be press'd or overlay'd with more grievances than the condition of his Principality does necessarily require If any go about to disturb the peace of their Neighbours they arm themselves immediately marching up and down their Dominions to hear the grievances and complaints of their Subjects and to comfort them with his presence and due execution of Justice and these are Princes indeed But what kind of Princes are your Cardinals Or what service do they do the Church to deserve that Title But their Soveraignty or to speak more properly their Dominion and Government is not in spiritual things forasmuch as the Pope is he that dispences indulgences gives dispensations sends out his Bulls and creates Bishops and Cardinals as he pleases so that the Pope only is Prince of the Church and not the Cardinals and although they may seem to have some share in the creation of Bishops because they are examin'd usually in a Congregation of Cardinals yet that is only form and outward appearance for in strictness the Pope can make whom he thinks good and without the consent or knowledge of the Cardinals send a Bishop into any City whether the whole Colledge of Cardinals dare not so much as send a Deacon to recite the Offices for the dead withcut the Popes permission And this is a thing that gives me no small discomposure as often as I think of it for indeed we all know and all History both Ecclesiastick and Prophane do confirm it that Saint Peter never did any thing but by the concurrence of the Apostolick Colledge but the Colledge often without Saint Peter nor can I tell how the face of things came to be chang'd for above twelve Centuries the Popes never insinuated or pretended to the creation of Bishops Cardinals or other Officers of the Church that belonging alwayes to the Synode and Colledge But now the Popes do all things as they list themselves and yet the Cardinals must needs have the Title of Princes of the Holy Church which the Popes do willingly allow them as not caring who have the smoak whilst they themselves run away with the roast But if the Popes have usurp'd upon the Cardinals Jurisdiction in Spiritual things much more have they robb'd them of it in Temporal One of them being taken away drew the other after it Whilst the Popes began at first by degrees to entrench upon that Authority in Spirituals that the Sacred Colledge was legally possess'd of and finding by little and little that they parted with patience with what they usurp'd with pride the good Popes took courage and seiz'd upon all driving them out both of their Spiritual and Temporal Authority too so that at this present the Cardinals have nothing left them but the benevolence of the Pope The worst is the Cardinals cannot yet tell in what manner they came to be robb'd of those Priviledges they in former times were possess'd of but for my part I believe it was from nothing else but their negligence and too little care they took of the conservation of that Authority that was given them by God by the Church by the Emperors and by the People for seeing their Authority very great they us'd not sufficient diligence to preserve it whereas the Popes being conscious of the weakness of their own they made it their business to enlarge it and they have done it so effectually they have left the other none at all Platina in his first impression of the Life of Paul the second gives an account that amongst others being accus'd of I know not what and brought Prisoner before the said Pope he petition'd his Holiness that he might be try'd before the Colledge of Cardinals in whose Judgement he would willingly acquiesce But the Pope enrag'd at the request told him What do you talk of Judgement know you not that I am infallible and carry all their Judgements and Reason in the Cabinet of my breast I consider
the third Heaven gives this plain Advice to Inquisitive Spirits Non plus sapere quam oportet sapere sed sapere ad sobrietatem Which Doctrine if receiv'd by the more speculative sort of Christians with the same lowliness of mind wherewith the Apostle writ it would undoubtedly free the minds of men bewildred in those perplexities wherein even the most learned have been inextricably intangled by too nice and curious Contemplation But so deeply rooted in our Nature is the Insatiate Desire of Knowledge that we are continually climbing above our own Level though besides the trouble of the Endeadeavour we run a hazard of falling from the Precipice and of loosing the eyes of our minds by tyring them in a prospect of things Invisible Nature hath allotted to Birds a light body fit for flying to Oxen a heavy one accommodate to the slower motion of progression the former being design'd to adorn the Region of the Air and the latter for Labour and Service on the Earth Mankind not content to enjoy the Measure of Understanding given them by Divine Providence seek to raise their heavy clods beyond their assigned Sphere by speculations of things incomprehensible as if it were free for them to out-do Nature and make a new Creation of Spirits Many admire and amidst the confusions of their admiration ask why God speaks no more to men since the Incarnation of our Saviour as he did in old time to the Israelites But for my part I wonder more that Men in these times cannot understand the Language of God as the Israelites did in times past and this wonder makes me sometimes pour out very pathetical complaints To the Israelites God spoke seldome few were the words and many times 't was on the tops of very high Mountains from amidst thick Clouds and darkness sometimes in profound sleeps cloath'd with Robes of invisible Air and sometimes with a Voice only deliver'd by some Celestal Messenger Now this Seldomness enhanc'd the wonder and Surprise in the Israelites themselves whilst they observ'd how they were favour'd at times and places by measure and proportion and they were not a little proud of these favours Those who doubt at present whether it be true that God speaks no more to Men have all the reason of the world to change that doubting thought if they will but seriously consider that God speaks now not from Mountains but from Pulpits not by Night but by Day not in Sleep but to men Awake not in the Air but in the Church not seldome but often not at some definite times but continually So that if they hear him not they are either deaf to the Voice of God or else nautiateth the great plenty of Celestial favours The Israelites boasted that God writ the Divine Law in Tables of Stone in order to the better preservation of the same and why should not Christians glory of the H. Charter written by the Apostles and Evangelists by the assistance of the H. Ghost for the propagation of Christianity God Almighty writes every day in Characters so legible that those who cannot read them may deservedly be called blind But which is worst those that are thus blind are the very same that take up a belief that in these dayes God neither speaks nor writes as he did in former Ages Whoso would understand the Divine Speakings and Desires to read the Characters of Heaven let him not be at distance with the H. Scripture inasmuch as this is the Key of Paradise and the H. Ghost hath left the same to us to declare to men what the Language of Heaven is in the New Testament The H. Scripture is the Book wherein God spoke to the Israelites and speaks still to Christians And 't is so replete with sweet expressions and wholsome discourses that 't is not possible to go away hungry from so plentiful a Table nor sick from so efficacicious a Medicine That wretched Impostor Mahomet who to blind others made himself blind forbad the Translation of the H. Scripture into the Turkish Language under severe penalties as doubting lest the Doctrine thereof being so pure and holy as it is should purifie and sanctifie the minds of such as should read it And the Roman Church permit it not in any other Language but the Latin as if the Apostles Evangelists and Prophets had written for a few and not for all men for some peculiar persons and not for the Universal Church Where can Christians of all sorts and conditions better spend the most precious Laws of the day where refresh themselves in afflictions where enrich themselves in poverty than in reading of the Volume of Divine Laws The Political Books of the Heathens which contain nothing but Secular Maximes cannot furnish us with other than Worldly Knowledge But the H. Volume which descended from Heaven brings Celestial Instruction with it whence those that read the same with great ardor find consolation in it amidst their greatest calamities end miseries The holy pure clean and simple Doctrines of Christian Religion give solace and comfort not only the most ignorant who live by direction but even the most learned who give directions to others or to express my self better they refresh and relieve not only the most learned who teach but even the most ignorant who are taught The Catholicks think to be sav'd by going to Maâ—s and the Hereticks by hearing Sermons Some of these to appear good Christians read the H. Scripture sing Psalms and say Grace at Table and divers Catholicks make Confessions to a Priest go in Pilgrimage and receive Indulgences and all this to avoid being pointed at by others by which manner of living they intimate the difference of Religion consists in nothing but in an outward and as I may say constrain'd appearance The Protestants deny not but that there are many in their Communion who lead Atheistical Lives making every thing lawful to themselves and stretching liberty of Conscience to a liberty of Sinning So likewise the Catholicks confess that many of themselves too live as if there were neither God nor Christ nor Law nor Faith in the World In this matter of Religion I find one Evil of which the Catholicks are more to be blam'd than the Protestants themselves and 't is this When Catholicks go into the Country of Protestants they not only accommodate themselves to live with the liberty of the place but assume a greater liberty of Conscience and abstain as well from some Exercises of Religion which are not forbidden as from such as are In like manner the Protestants in Catholick Countries not only abstain from reading the H. Scripture singing of Psalms and frequenting Sermons but besides making a medley of Omissions they forbear to pay their Devotions to Almighty God both when they go to sleep in the Evening or rise from bed in the Morning 'T is true the Protestants well knowing the extreme rigor of the Inquisition find themselves necessitated to dissemble their Religion for avoiding the
Inheritance but he is unwilling to be declar'd Heir to those duties and obligations which the said St. Peter has left upon him to the Church he can be content to be own'd his Successor but 't is in what only relates to the Authority Majesty and Jurisdiction of the Church and to the power of opening and shutting the Gates of Paradice which St. Peter had but with this difference that the Apostle refus'd to admit those that offer'd mony for the power of working Miracles whereas the Pope does nothing without ready mony In short the Popes boast themselves Heirs of what is profitable and beneficial but as to debts obligations and incumbent charges they speak not a word these things are not comprehended in the Inheritance Do the Popes pay Tribute to Temporal Princes as St. Peter did Not a penny they receiv'd not the Inheritance forsooth upon such terms Do they pay that respect to Princes which St. Peter did No they are not his Heirs in this point Do they comport themselves with St. Peters zeal and humility No. Do they leave the Government of the people in Temporals to their Princes as St. Peter did No by no means these are too great burdens and incumbrances for Popes who would rather renounce the whole Sacred inheritance than charge themselves with any such obligations 'T is sufficient for them that they are called Christs Vicars and that they hold the Keys fast in their hand which they say our Saviour gave to St. Peter with power to dispose of them at his death as he pleas'd Many times have I been ruminating of the great difference betwixt the primitive and the present Church Nowadayes there is nothing but Threats Sword War Extortion Theft Luxury Blasphemy Scandal Malice and Enmities On the contrary in the primitive times nothing was seen but Martyrs and Saints whose blood shed in defence of their Faith made Rivulets in the Streets no discourse was heard then but of Miracles of the Cross and of Edification nothing was regarded but good examples nothing thought of but fasting and praying and holiness of life In those dayes great reverence was given to the Sacerdotal Function because their Priests were pious and of very good lives In these dayes it is undervalued and despis'd because the Priests are Devils I speak with exception of the good In those dayes when they saw the Cross of Christ wav'd gently over their heads by the hand of the Pope they prostrated themselves reverently in his presence but now they are forc'd to kneel because they see a menacing Sword in the Popes hands It was then the care of Christs Vicars to win the Secular Princes and work themselves into their affections by their good Deeds now their design is nothing but to be fear'd by Princes for their threats Then they affected and endeavour'd peace and friendship amongst Christian Princes but now they are grown Martial and think of nothing but War Then they were so devoted to the Service of the Altar that they took no care of their kindred whom they kept at distance from the Vatican but now are so wholly addicted to the advancement of their families that they never think of the Altar Then they were meek and humble now proud and imperious It was their glory then to administer the Sacrament with their own hands now they will scarce vouchsafe to have it taken in their presence Then they had golden Consciences and wooden Walls but now they have wooden Consciences and golden Walls Lastly Then their Arithmetick was imploy'd in reckoning up the Miracles and good Actions of the Saints and now 't is of no other use but to count out their Money to their Kindred A difference so great and deplorable 't is enough to force tears from the eyes of all the faithfull that consider it But why do not the Popes at this day work Miracles Why do not they practice that holy and severe way of living which they did formerly or why have they laid aside those rules that conduce so much to the edification of the Church It will be answer'd perhaps that in those dayes Miracles were necessary for the establishment of the Church but that being now establish'd there needs nothing but Faith for its conservation but this is meer equivocation and a gilding of Pills to disguise their bitterness If in the Infancy of the Church there was need of Holy men to establish it there is as great need now of Miracles to reform it and this opinion of mine is founded upon the opinion of certain of the H. Fathers who assert the Conversion of one Sinner to be a greater Miracle than the Creation of the whole World because there is more difficulty in the Conversion of an old Sinner than in the Creation of a new Man And from whence is it that this vast difference proceeds I know not unless that the Popes minds are so taken up in the enjoyment of their unmeasurable wealth they have no leisure to look over the sufferings of their Predecessors or to consider the benefit those holy men brought to Christianity by their Mortifications and the injury themselves bring to it by their Luxury and excess Can it possibly be believ'd that the Holy Spirit should not have that influence in the creation and guiding of the Modern Popes as it had formerly upon the Antient But Experience tells us that the nature of Popes being now changed they are contented to dye Martyrs of their own passions rather than to live triumphantly with Christ so frequently are interests of this world preferr'd by them before those of Heaven and the Church Some there are who believe that Miracles are not ceas'd but the Modern Popes thinking that which was the glory of their Predecessors their shame will not trouble themselves to perform them Others are of opinion that our Saviour has taken away that power from them lest they should fall into the temptation of Lucifer and Adam and the addition of Sanctity of life to the title of Gods Vicegerent should induce the people to pay them the adoration of a Deity And others believe that the Popes cannot do Miracles because their Nephews hinder them I am of opinion contrary to all these that the same Spirit that govern'd and directed Popes heretofore still guides and will guide them to the end of the world I am perswaded they are no sooner in the Vatican but they are prick'd forward and instimulated to good deeds by the Divine Spirit their hearts cleansed from bad thoughts and impregnated with an affection to the Church of Christ In short I hold it as an Article of my Faith that the Popes are not the primary Authors of those Scandals and Controversies that fall out daily betwixt the Temporal Princes and the Popes who are holy men nor yet of any of the Calamities of the Church but rather those Churchmen who are Devils it being most true that the Popes sin so farr as the good Ecclesiasticks make them sin by
putting thoughts into their heads which otherwise had never come there But who are those audacious Ecclesiasticks that dare to put ill thoughts into the heart of his Holiness What Devil possesses them with such wicked designs What Malignant Star is it that guides them what Land that bears what Heaven that nourishes them Let them be known let them be discover'd that the eyes of the Faithfull be blinded no longer And yet indeed in some respects they are to be excus'd 't is contrary to their intention if they do any hurt they sin by striving to do too well 't is their great zeal to the Church and the Pope that makes them ill servants to both They are like the Ape that hugs and imbraces what it loves so hard that it many times kills with its kindness and I am afraid one day they will bring an old house over their heads But you will ask who these are The Divines What Divines Those Divines who being Partisans of the Court of Rome employ a thousand Artifices for the depression of Secular Authority and elevation of the Papal Whence in hopes of a Cardinals Cap will with great impudence maintain that the Pope is not only infallible but also impeccable This is the Source of all the mischief and Heresie in the Church hence proceeds the sorrow of Christians the failing of Miracles and the Scandal of the See of Rome In the Primitive dayes when there were no such Doctors but such whose business was to correct not to flatter the Governours of the Church in their iniquities holiness flourish'd miracles were frequent zeal and sincerity was alwayes in the Hearts mortification in the Countenances and edification in the Mouths of the Saints Piety was showr'd as it were from Heaven and perfum'd the Altars in the Churches whilst the Priests by their good lives won over the people to Devotion Those Popes that were inwardly holy forbore not to confess themselves Sinners publickly and because those Divines that writ then as with pens from Heaven did not ascribe to them that outward appellation holiness they endeavour'd to attain inward holiness by Mortifications and Sackcloth and all imaginable subduing themselves lest as the Apostle admonishes his followers preaching to others they themselves should become cast away Those Primitive Popes were in such fear of erring that they undertook not any business of importance but after long fasting and severe pennance they willingly follow'd the advice of the most pious Prelats and submitted with humility to the judgements of such as had more zeal in their hearts than honey in their tongues They gave ear always with so great attention of mind that by-standers conceiv'd them rapp'd into an exstasie but not to such as flatter'd them with panegiricks or tickled them with stories of the peoples applause not to such as cry'd up the grandeur of their charge the holiness of their lives and happiness of the people in being under such holy Pastors not to such as strein'd their wits for far-fetch'd adulations to tickle their ears loosing themselves some times in magnifications of their virtues as false as tedious Such as these were not suffer'd in Rome were not receiv'd into the Vatican were not admitted into the presence of the Pope but were chased from the Court banish'd from the Church suspended from the Ministry and depriv'd of their Priesthood and why Because the Popes in those dayes being holy as David would not hearken to any of their Doctors but such as were like the Prophet who dar'd to rebuke iniquity even in David himself They would sit whole dayes together in the Chair of St. Peter hearing such Divines Ambassadors and Ministers as with tears in their eyes recounted the miseries of the people the afflictions of the Faithfull the necessities of the Church the ill administration of Officers the irreverence of Priests the scandals of Prelats and the little care which Churchmen took of the Service of God Oh! What effect did these complaints work in the hearts of the Popes in those times With what hast would they apply themselves to the finding a remedy How they would embrace those that gave them such informations and with what ardour and zeal would they implore the Divine assistance How blessed a sight was it to see Criminals reverently fall upon their knees in the presence of those Popes that reprehended them And what heart could be so stony as not to melt at their pious and humble admonitions They did not threaten but imbrace Offendors and if they threatned their threats awaken'd repentance as being affectionate and void of worldly design When those Popes admonish'd Sinners they did it not to revile them with reproachfull and injurious language but acknowledging that themselves also had their frailties and were subject to errors as other men said We are all Sinners not you are all Sinners Our flesh is lyable to Sin we are not Angels but Men with which meek and humble expressions they wrought themselves first into the hearts of Sinners and afterwards apply'd all fitting remedies to their condition Such was the holy Church in the Primitive times such were the Popes whose piety was a great cause of miracles being so frequent and of the universal holiness of that age But now let us see the difference of times and the reasons why no Popes do miracles now adayes nor holy men shine any longer in the Church God forgive those Divines that have been the chief occasion of that loss to the Church Before the Divines turn'd Parasites the Popes were holy but they became Devils after the Court of Rome was once fill'd with those Virmin who are become the very Plague of all Christendome Let us ask those Courtiers that from Sun rising to Sun setting walk up and down in the publick Chambers of the Pontifical Palace expecting when by the favour of the Nephews a Cardinals Cap should fall upon some of their alwayes uncover'd heads They can tell us if they please and give us a list of what persons are admitted now adays into Ecclesiastical charges and who have the most familiar and frequent access to the Pope's presence which if they would do I am confident the Faithfull would be no longer at a loss in seeking the cause of the cessation of miracles provided those persons would be exact in relating the truth Miracles From whence should they come if Sanctity be banish'd from Rome and the Popes follow not those excellent examples that were left them by their Predecessors In the Vatican there is now nobody to be seen but people crowding in with their offerings and full of hopes of obtaining those dignities by their mony which they could never have expected from their merits whilst out of the City Gates are to be seen melancholly and afflicted troops of the best deserving persons unprovided for the places which they had merited being given to the unworthy Simoniacks Miracles And how should that be if they who rebuke the iniquities of the scandalous are
persecuted to the death if it be not permitted to any body to put his hand to the Plough and discover the calamities of the people if the most able Preacher be not allowed to reprehend Sin either in the Pope or his Nephews if iniquity that runs like a Torrent through the Streets of Rome and the Chambers of the Vatican must be wink'd at and past by if the wicked must be adored and the holy man despised if those must be clapt in Prison that were worthier to be Judges if the ignorant be advanc'd and the learned be banish'd if the Thefts of the Priests be more numerous than their Masses and if there be no distinction betwixt good and evil Miracles How whilst they who come to complain of the hourly oppressions of the Popes Ministers cannot be admitted into the Gate of the Vatican if the Cardinals Horses be fed with more care than the poor of Jesus Christ if the walls of Churches be left naked to adorn the Palaces of the Nephews if the Inheritances left by Religious persons for pious uses be imploy'd to buy Principalities to satisfie the pomp and pride of the Popes kindred If the Clergy spend more time at Playes and Brothel-houses than they do at Church or at Prayers But how would he that should dare to give these informations to the Pope be welcom'd in Rome with Kindness and Love 'T is madness to imagine it Chains Manicles Prisons and Fagots would be the recompence of his Zeal and his entertainment sooner with the Hangman than with the Pope In Rome in the Vatican those Divines are well look'd upon that write great Volumes in defence of the infallibility and impeccability of the Pope that Canonize the actions of his Nephews that cry up the Glory of his Family to the Skyes pronouncing him one of the greatest Monarchs in the World that insinuate into his ear the satisfaction of the people with his Government and what necessity they had of such a Pastor that make comparisons in their writings and parallels between God and the Pope with a thousand other extravagant flatteries enough to â—urn the stomach of all Religious Men. Oh how sweet are these notes in the Ears of the Popes How harmoniously do they Eccho within the walls of the Vatican In this manner are things now carried at Rome he that doubts it had best go see for my part I am satisfy'd with what I have seen already I am no flatterer of that Court and therefore not like to be so welcome as to take a new Journey However I may perhaps do better service to the Church by blaming and pointing out the Corruptions of its Ministers than the false Priests do with all their Adulation and Oratory But whether do my thoughts wander He who makes the Pope equal with God may be a favourite of Pope but he that compares a Prince to the Pope shall be laid by the heels He which maintains the dignity of a Prince to be inferiour and subordinate to a Popes may be rewarded but he that says Princes are independent is sure to be persecuted He that asserts the Decrees of a Councel to be of more Authority than the Pope's may be Excommunicated for his pains but he that affirms all Councels subject to the Pope shall receive his Benediction he that affirms the Popes power to be Monarchical and depending of God alone may be a favourite but he that pronounces him inferiour to the Church shall be sure to be hated he that holds the Pope to be infallible shall have a Bishoprick whilst he that holds the other side is sent a Slave to the Galleys he that preaches up the Popes power of Excommunicating and deposing of Kings shall be sure to be protected from receiving punishment from his Prince but he that sayes that Doctrine is false shall be hang'd in spight of the intercession of Kings Thus you behold the present State of Rome the Corruptions of this Age the Iniquities in the Church and the pernicious degeneracy of the Popes Those very Divines that think to make the Popes holy by declaring them infallible render them guilty even to their own Consciences whilst the innocent Popes trusting to the flatteries and adulations of these Divines walk on careless and inconsiderate of what they do mistaking even evil for good Pope Sextus the fifth caus'd the Bible to be printed and by a very severe Bull requir'd not only that it should be read but that it should be used in perpetuum In a few years after Clement the seventh succeeds him and with another Bull as rigid as the former suppress'd Sextus's Edition and commanded all the Copyes that could be found to be burnt in the Inquisition John the two and twentieth with his own hands writ and publish'd That the Souls of the Saints injoyed not the Beatifical Vision till after the day of Judgement This opinion being contrary to the formulary of the Church and his Holiness being advis'd of his errour he disclaim'd it himself and publish'd a Bull which is at this day to be seen in the 15th Tome of the Ecclesiastical Annals against the erroniousness of that Opinion Boniface the eight in that wild and extravagant Bull which begins Vnam Sanctam pronounc'd it as one of the principal Articles of Faith that Kings in Temporals as well as Spirituals are absolutely dependant upon the Pope But his Successor Clement the fifth finding the ill effects it had upon the people revok'd that Bull some few years after as pernicious and publish'd another in favour of the Soveraignty of Princes And now let that Reverend Father Diana tell me that Diana who in hope to have been Worshipp'd like an Idol hath made himself ridiculous by his works I mean that great Diana that was Examiner of the Bishops and took more pains than all of them to defend the impeccability of the Pope let him tell me whereas he writes the Pope cannot err these Popes Sextus Quintus or Clement the seventh Boniface the eighth or Clement the fifth did err it cannot be deny'd but one of them did err and iâ— that be clear why must the people be deluded any longer with so false an opinion but that which is of most importance is that they deceive the Popes themselves whom they cry up for Infallible and of this Innocent the tenth in an instance who when the people complain'd to him of the Oppression and ill Government of his Ministers reply'd That his Officers must of necessity be just because he that was infallible â—ad chosen them whereupon the oppressed people return'd home cursing that opinion and those Divines that had perswaded them to 't Paul the fourth was not of that Judgement for being supplicated by a person of great quality in the year 1557. to dissolve a Contract that had been made by words de presenti he refus'd it absolutely and declar'd That his Predecessors had many times deceiv'd themselves in matters of that Nature but for his part he
the Eastern Church and even that of Rome where Christianity was at first in its greatest Purity and would doubtless be again had not the Corruption of the times brought a scandal upon it even amongst Christians themselves I call it modestly the corruption of the times though I am sensible the introduction of so many idle and Superfluous Ceremonies into the Church has been an occasion of corrupting the times and with them Christianity it self The Jewish Church as I have said being a profess'd Enemy to Christ Preaching and Blaspheming in their Synagogues against the Crucify'd Redeemer and by their false Doctrine debauching and perverting poor Christians from their Faith ought in all equity to be banish'd from the Roman for their perverseness or ignorance be it which you will being invincible They are not to be satisfy'd of the coming of our Saviour or the redemption of the World the only point and ground of our Salvation and therefore unfit not only for Protection at Rome but for any Conversation in Christendom it being nothing else but to make a mixture of Gold and Durt Glory and Blame Praise and Blasphemy The Christian Policy indeed and I wish I could say Humane also of the Spaniards is to be commended in their Dominions they will not allow any Religion but the Catholick it is a Principle with them in a State should be but unus Dominus una Fides which is the reason that the Spaniards are not troubled with those Schisms and Factions in their Church as they are in other States to the confusion of the greatest Doctors who are able to distinguish betwixt good and evil much more of the poor ignorant people who are guided only by the outward appearances which they see in others But because the Interests of Religion are oftentimes overpower'd in the minds of men by sensual passions and worldly interests which should rather be subdu'd by them hence things are brought to a contrary posture and the Jews have greater liberty than the Greeks not in Italy only but in Rome it self the Popes carrying a stricter eye over the Actions and Ceremonies of the Greek Church than over the pernicious Doctrines of the Hebrews For the Jews being of a perverse and refractory humour in matters of Religion are in Humane things so complacent and flexible that by their Tributes and Insinuations they have so wrought themselves into the conversation of the Christians that they are treated by them as the nearest of their Kindred and Friends And I could wish that this were the worst but such is the force and incantation of their money that the very Popes have been perswaded not only to give them Protection in the Dominions of the Church but to suffer them to erect their Temples and Altars to Preach to Celebrate their Paschal with all possible Solemnity and to hold their Synagogues in all places whereas the Grecians wanting that Subtlety and Compliance and not thinking it just to pay Tribute where they are Strangers though in other places they have whole Provinces enough to evince the antiquity of their Rights which are in many things inconformable with the Roman they are forc'd to be contented with the exercise of some small pittance of their Ceremonies though under the eye of the Bishop of Rome But before we proceed any farther in the particularities of the Church of Rome from whence our Cardinalisme deduces its original to satisfie the curiosity of the Reader and to facilitate his understanding it is fit to consider the Universality of the Church which is particular in the Universal although universal and particular too as the Ecclesiasticks believe The word Church as it has been declar'd by several Learned men and ought to be acknowledg'd by all Christians signifies nothing but an Assembly of many persons and the Scripture uses it in four principal senses In the first it signifies only the Elect and those Blessed Souls that are separated from the Corruption of the world and taken into the fruition of Eternal happiness to wit the Glorify'd Saints or the Church Triumphant which is so much talk'd of in the world and so much aspir'd to by the Righteous Secondly it denotes in general the Universal visible Church comprehending Protestants though the Pope calls them Hereticks as well as the Catholicks and of this Church St. Paul speaks when he writes to Timothy that in a great City there are not only vessels of Gold and of Silver but of Wood also and of Earth by this Rhetorical and Figurative way of speaking insinuating that the Church is compos'd of bad as well as good of those predestinated to Damnation as those decreed to be Saved Yet so it is with the Roman Divines as if they know not what St. Paul had writ or pretended to know more will admit into the Pale of their Church which ought to be Universal only such particulars as can truckle and condescend to the Kissing of the Priests Hand and the Popes Toe Thirdly it signifies the Assembly and Congregation of the Pastors and principal Governours of Christs Flock and in this acceptation it was our Saviour speaking of Brotherly correction admonishes that if the party offending be pertinacious in his fault and worthy of reprehension the party offended should apply himself for reparation to the Church From whence it is plain that our Saviour intended the Congregations and Synods of Bishops and other Rulers in the Church whose office it is to inspect the affairs thereof and negotiate for its benefit and accommodation Though some there are that believe Christ meant by the Word a Compleat and Universal Assembly of the Godly which in my judgement is improbable because the Gospel our principal light declares expresly that the power of Correction was in the Rulers only and not in them By the fourth and last signification of the word Church every particular Congregation of Christians is intended which though it seem in appearance to be separated yet it is indeed a Member joyn'd and fasten'd by an indivisible knot to the intire and universal body of the visible Church And in the Infancy of Christianity when the Apostles writ their Epistles to Corinth Ephesus and Rome those Churches were such And I suppose our Saviour intended no otherwise in those words Where two or three are met together in my name I will be in the midst of them And indeed when two or three are met together either in the Church in Prison in the Streets or elsewhere if it be to read the Scriptures to send up their Prayers to Heaven or for any other action of devotion whether Protestant or Papist they are in my judgement a Church and Christ is in the midst of them for it is not the number of persons but the intention of their meeting which denominates them a Church Otherwise an Assembly of Gamesters would have as much right to that honourable appellation as they But there is one thing very necessary to be determined the Romans
or the Churchmen of Rome are accustom'd to call their Church sometimes the Roman and othertimes the Catholick Church the greatest part of them being unable to show any reason at all for this distinction Now the word Catholick importing universal and Roman on the other side particular it cannot be Catholick and Roman too for if 't is Roman then 't is particular and if so then not Catholick To take away this Confusion therefore and bring things to a consistence one of the two names is to be laid aside and the other retain'd and in my judgement that of Universal Church will be best to be kept and that of Roman left The Roman Divines are so troubled and perplex'd to find some new argument for proving the Popes Infallibility which I have sufficiently discours'd in my first book and have so twisted and intangled themselves in that opinion that they have no time to consider whether the Church it self be Infallible or not which would be a great ease to the scruples of the Faithfull If the Church were deriv'd from the Pope it might with great reason be question'd whether the Pope be Infallible but since the Pope hath his being and existence from the Church the question must be concerning the Infallibility of the Church There is a saying so common amongst Christians that it has past into a Proverb I know not upon what reason If a person at any time be of a lame Conscience and inclin'd to some false belief the common saying is that he has the Conscience of a Divine as if Divines had no Consciences at all which I fear is too true for they write as they think good and teach what they please but believe not themselves what they write or teach And if there were not this latitude amongst them 't is not probable they would assert the Pope to be the Churches Elder Brother and in respect of his primogeniture to be the more venerable A Prodigy I could not have believ'd had I not known it by experience for the irreverences committed against the Church being punish'd with some ordinary Correction and those against the Pope with death it is plain his Authority is the greater and he has been no ill husband of his Prerogative But this opinion is not only ridiculous as several other of their tenents are but so weak and unstable that it threatens the whole Fabrick with destruction true it is they do fortifie themselves very much with that expression which our Saviour us'd to Saint Peter Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church From whence they argue that the Church being built upon St. Peter St. Peter as its foundation supported the Church inferring and upon pain of sinning mortally injoyning the people to believe that Christ by that expression had pronounc'd the Pope chief Shepherd of his Flock and absolute Bishop of all Christian people that from that time he began to build up his Church upon the Shoulders of St. Peter and he might lawfully claim his prerogative as if the rest of the Apostles had been laid aside and had not unanimously cooperated to the common good That St. Peter was the foundation of the Church I can easily grant nor do I think there is any will deny it provided the same prerogative be allowed to the rest of the Apostles who were comprehended also in that expression and to those other Pastors and Rulers that succeeded and are still subservient in the Church And to this our Saviour alludes when he says if the Shepherd be smitten the Flock is dispers'd intimating that the care of the Church lyes upon the Ministers without which they would be but like a Flock without any body to look to them But that the Pope should usurp to himself the Primogeniture and instead of raising the Church upon himself abase it destroying the Apostolical manner of proceeding and making for himself a particular Apostleship and asserting the Church to be made for him not he for the Church is a subject worthy the consideration of all Christians because it gives occasion of so many Scruples and Schisms What should be the reason that the Roman Divines find it much easier to prove the Popes infallibility than the Churches I cannot imagine unless that observing the difficulty of finding arguments for either and yet being oblig'd to write something of Ecclesiastical matters they choose rather to indulge that vanity in the Pope who is able to reward them than to speak any thing of the Churches infallibility which would conduce so much to the ed 〈…〉 of the Faithfull who are ignorant of the matter Now every good office requiring a reward and every reward a publique acknowledgement the Divines therefore taking notice with what slowness and difficulty those that promote the interest of the Church though with never so much zeal are advanc'd and on the other side how free and prodigal the Popes are in their remunerations to such as drive on their designs hence they choose not the Churches side which is poor but the Popes who is rich and hath the disposing of all Bishopricks Abbeys and Cardinalships in his power I am of opinion and I think no body but some Sycophant Friar will deny it that if the Election into Ecclesiastical preferments depended upon the universal body of the Church or else upon each particular Member of it for example the dignity of a Cardinal upon the Consistory of Cardinals the Office of Bishops upon the Synod of Bishops and so thorough all Offices and that with the order of the same secret votes as is us'd in the Senate at Venice I am confident there would be few Divines found even of those that now with so much vehemence exalt him that would flatter the Pope but apply themselves intirely to the service of the Church And unless the antient zeal for Religion which at present is not to be found in the breast of a Cardinal do revive or Secular Princes do suddenly apply themselves to the finding out a remedy it is most certain things can never proceed but with great scandal to the Church not only amongst Hereticks who are alwayes prying and observing the actions of the Catholicks but of the Heathens also who as yet have but little knowledge of the Roman transactions Were the tongues of people restrain'd were all innovations exploded and things honestly restor'd to the Primitive way that fugitive Flock that is dispers'd at present in the Wilderness of Heresie would return to its Fold Schismatical controversies would cease the differences betwixt Christian Princes would be compos'd and their united forces be directed against the Turk In short were that absolute and despotical power in the Pope restrain'd or taken away or at least the right of Election which for five ages was observ'd constantly in the Church restor'd to the Congregations Synods and Consistories Christianity would be advanc'd Heresie depress'd and things reduc'd again to that Primitive Sanctity when every mans whole
St. Mathew Be not in any case called Masters because there is one that is your Master but be as if you were all Brothers Can any thing be more clear can any thing be of greater proof When Christ spake these words to his Apostles St. Peter was present and therefore like but not Superiour to the rest So as what authority is that the present Divines give to St. Peter over the Apostles and by consequence to the Popes over the Cardinals In my judgement both sides are too blame the Popes to usurp and exalt themselves so much and the Cardinals to prostitute and debase themselves These are the errours that occasion if not the greatest part of our Heresies at least the most stubborn and perverse part of them it being most certain that a great part of their Passion and Acrimony against the Church would be taken away could they but see things honestly administred by an equal concurrence both in Cardinals and Pope But to return from this point from which also we have in some measure been forc'd to digress I will speak now of the infallibility of the Church Let us first examine if there be or ever was such a Church in the world to whom God had vouchsaf'd out of his profound Counsels to bestow any such privilege There is no need of studying or using any long and elaborate arguments to prove that all Churches whatsoever have been subject to Errour dayly experience presenting us with continnal examples that they have fallen into errour as great as can be imagin'd by man The Jewish Church that flourish'd so long under their Patriarchs and Prophets that before the coming of our Saviour had the honour to be call'd the only visible Church of God though it was govern'd by pious and experienc'd Pastors Err notwithstanding and was most miserably involv'd in the puddle of Idolatry so as we read in the Chrenicles That for many days together the Israelites had neither God nor Law nor Priest amongst them all to direct them And the Prophet Esau with Tears in his Eyes and Sorrow in his Heart complains That all their Governors were blind And the Prophet Ezechiel tells us that this Idolatry over-spread the Church as well in Egypt as in Israel But we need not trouble our brains for an instance of their erring the Golden Calf the people made to themselves and worshipp'd as a God in spight of Aaron and Moses who went up into the Mount to receive the Tables of the Law is too sad an evidence Jeremiah complains with great anguish of the miseries of Juda that was fallen into that profound and bottomless impiety it was a question whether there were more Cities or Idols in her Dominions And at the time of our Saviours coming into the world he found the Church infected with an infinite number of Heresies and Innovations introduc'd by the false Doctrines disseminated by those very Scribes and Pharisees that govern'd it Let the Scriptures be look'd over never so seriously let the Ecclesiastical Histories be examin'd never so strictly I am sure there is not any particular Church to be found since the time of the Apostles that retains its proper and Primitive Purity and has not deviated by some corruption or other from its first method and form So as St. Paul had very good reason in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans to exhort them to have a care they did not wander from the truth The Church of Rome notwithstanding all this believes her self infallible or at least some Divines would perswade her so In Genoa there was a Priest called Father Zachary as I remember I am sure he was a Dominican that Preach'd upon that Subject he was a great Orator and had a vast memory he us'd all the arguments were possible to prove it and amongst the rest this one in St. Mathew And the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it which he urg'd with that vehemence that he declar'd that as often and every time the Church did err so often should Christ himself break his promise with the Church The Father being himself both Opponent and Respondent there was no answer given to that position yet it may be very well alleadg d that Christ in those words spake not of any particular Church but only of the Church of his Elect and therefore assures us also in other places that all the Machinations Persecutions and Conspiracres of the three implacable Enemies of mankind united shall not be able to extinguish and irradicate that Church because Gods Foundations are firm and unmoveable and he knows who are his own As it is in the Apostle to Timothy to which may be added those words of our Saviour The Heaven and the Earth shall pass away but my Word shall not fail intending thereby the Church where the word of God is preach'd And if it happens at any time that any particular Church deviates from the right way which is the way of truth the only foundation of the Church and upon which our Salvation is built God of his mercy will raise up another to convince that of the errour it is fallen into Amongst all the Churches since the beginning of the world there has not been found that unconstancy and confusion as in the Church of Rome so many Anti-Popes Schisms Heresies Controversies Confusions Suspensions Persecutions so many false Opinions Scandals Tyrannies and Intestine Quarrels as there Several times have they been known to adore two Popes in the same Province at once at another time three of several Nations the very Colledge of Cardinals being divided some of them favouring one side some another and some of them believing neither of them lawfull This I am sure that at the Election of one Pope there grew such Schism in the Church the people were in great perplexity and confusion and not knowing by reason of the difference amongst the Cardinals which was the true Christian Church they were to follow they remain'd not only months but years in that irresolution as if they had belong'd neither to God nor the Devil Is it not too true Their Ecclesiasticks themselves do not only dispute in their Councels but fall out and quarrel with that vehemence and passion they will sooner leave the Councel than their Opinions so pertinaciously proud are they of any thing that is their own though with the greatest scandal to the people who in that uncertainty of the truth forsake not only their fiery and unreasonable Opinions but their Religion it self But what shall I say Are there not Bishops that Preach false Doctrine in their Diocess chaulking out Rules of living to the people contrary to the meaning of the Gospel and what is taught in Rome And have there not been Popes that have been disclaimed by their Clergy From hence it may be easily concluded that their Opinion that hold the Church infallible is false and erroneous and if the Church be fallible much more the Pope who though Governour
solemn Entry of the Queen of Sweedland I heard an Expression of a Roman that gave me so great scandal that from my Cradle I was not in greater perplexity than at that time and all upon occasion of the Grandeur the Pope had usurp'd under pretence of Religion Being one day in St. Peters Church to see the aforesaid Queen Baptiz'd and observing the Pope and Cardinals with most incredible Majesty walking about in most sumptuous Habits I turn'd about to my Camerade and told him in my judgement I did believe there could not be richer Cloaths seen in the whole World The Roman heard me and crowding himself towards us gave me this answer The Habits Sir of the Pope Cardinals and Prelats are very rich indeed but my Wife shews her bare breech for it Neither my Camerade nor I gave him any answer suspecting him for some Court Spye that use to insinuate themselves as it were by accident into peoples company and speak ill of the Pope to make discovery of what their affections are But this poor Roman spake as he thought by the rest of his discourse making it plain how miserable the people of Rome were that were forc'd to deny themselves bread to enable them to pay the Taxes and Impositions laid upon them by the Pope So as the poor man concluded that the Catholick Religion in the Ecclesiastick State was the cause of the distress of the people and of all the pleasures and extravagancies in the Ecclesiasticks To this purpose I remember a certain Sermon I heard in a Covent in Rome and in the presence of two Cardinals one of them Sacchetti but the others name I have forgot The Sermon and the whole design of it made such an impression in me I think of it a hundred times a day and shall in this place insert the most memorable part of it The Preacher was a bare-footed Franciscan he seem'd a poor pittiful creature to look on but he was the more experienc'd in morality and declaim'd with that zeal and vigor against vice he rais'd devotion in the hearts of his whole Auditory The first Sunday in Lent this Holy Father being got into the Pulpit in the presence of two Cardinals and a very great Auditory besides after an Ave Maria and two or three cringes with his knee as is usual rising up again upon his feet he put his Cappuce or Cowle upon his head and pulling it down so low that we could scarce see his eyes in which posture having paus'd a while without speaking a word fixing his eyes upon the Cardinals that stood before him without naming any Text at all he breaks out abruptly into these words St. Peter was a fool St. Paul was a fool all the Apostles were fools the Martyrs were fools and all the Primitive Saints of the Church of Jesus Christ our Redeemer were fools The Cardinals at these words grew as insensible as Statues the people on the other side stood gaping in expectation of what would follow most of us imagining there was some mystery in the business and I among the rest admiring what freak this should be was very well contented to attend whilst the Father after some moments of silence which he had used on purpose to observe the distraction of the people began his discourse as followeth You that are Prelats do not you believe you shall be sav'd Yes good Father we do I know your answer And you of the common sort of people you are certain of Paradice Without question you will say yes Yes say I By turning night into day by feasting sporting and luxury with travelling all day in your Coaches and seeing Comedyes at night with wearing of Purple and Scarlet Silver and Gold and having your Silken trains carryed after you in the Street yes by spoyling the Walls of the Church to adorn the Walls of your Chambers and by taking from Christ to bestow upon the World is it in this manner O Romans you would be Saved The Apostles certainly and all the Saints of the Primitive Church might have been Saved the same way and then as certainly they were mad-men and fools to wander up and down in solitude and misery begging their bread for the love of God They were out of their wits to run up and down bare-foot and bare-legg'd preaching of Repentance and lying whole weeks together upon the ground and at last indure Injuries Imprisonments Persecutions and Death you are mistaken O Romans the Apostles and Primitive Saints were full of Sanctity and Prudence it is you are the fools to propose a new way of Salvation to your selves invented by your own intemperance and vanity you you are the fools you are the mad-men that think to save your Souls by ways not only contrary to the Precepts of the Gospel but against all reason whatsoever And these were the express words that he us'd which as soon as I went home I set down in writing lest I should forget them After this the Father named this Text Ductus est Jesus in Desertum admiring his patience which he apply'd with several places of Scripture and arguments of his own very proper for such select matter to us with great fervour and zeal I went home very well satisfi'd with the Preacher but in great apprehension for him believing as an Article of my Faith he would have been burnt next day in the Inquisition I was beginning a Psalm of Mercy for his Soul but my memory was too weak to go thorow with it but if I had my labour had been but lost the good Father had no need of it at all for he continued his Preaching in the same Church and with a greater concourse than before to my no small admiration for this I am certain of a Heretick nor the worst Enemy the Church of Rome had not only durst not but could not have found out more ignominious language against the City of Rome when two Cardinals were present To speak the truth that Sermon put a thousand thoughts into my head about matters of Religion which indeed are those I do most naturally apply my self to I would willingly have given any thing I had been absent and have repented me several times of going to Church that day and not without reason for from that day to this it has still run in my thoughts with what difference and contrariety they live now to the manner they lived in the minority of the Church when this City flourish'd with Godly men and Martyrs If a Heretick be ask'd whether he thinks to be saved or not I mean such a one as would cheat his own Father minds nothing but Roguery a continual Swearer and Debaucher one that goes to Church only for fear of the Magistrate ask such a one what he thinks of his Salvation and he will tell you he is most certain of it if you ask by what means he will answer with greater arrogance still by vertue of the blood of our Saviour that was
the Cardinals leave Another but a Protestant who was a pleasant Companion would wish often he had the power of doing Miracles for one day or rather than fail for a moment Having occasion to talk with him one day and by degrees of the power of working Miracles which he desir'd so earnestly I had the curiosity to ask him what he would do with that virtue if he had it he answer'd me sodainly He would turn water into wine aâ— Christ himself had done at the Marriage of Cana in Galilea and he had reason for what he said for at that time Wine was very dear in that Country and he had a custom of being drunk once a year but that fit lasted three hundred sixty five dayes together And in this condition is the Church at that time replete with a wicked and perverse Generation and therefore no wondeâ— if the faculty of working Miracles be ceas'd that in the dayes of the Apostles was so frequent and conspicuous Now adayes every one drives at his own interest and prefers his particular profit before the advantage of the Church so as I am perswaded should God Almighty permit Miracles again the people are so bewitch'd with their own interest and so inveterated in iniquity it would be of small benefit to the Church I remember to this purpose what is recorded of Sextus the fifth who being created Pope would have a General Chapter of the Fathers of his Order celebrated at Rome where several Religious men should be present and he himself was present in some of the principal Transactions The Convocation being met and the General made the Pope as a token of his affection gave order that before their departure from Rome the Fathers of the Chapter should attend his Holiness and kiss his Foot and withall that they should each of them have liberty to ask a Boon and the said Sextus promis'd them it should be granted The good Fryers were very punctual coming in Procession one by one into the Popes presence in the Vatican The Pope standing upon his Throne they advanc'd to kiss his Toe and when that was performed every one a part demanded his Boon There was three hundred and more Fryers that entred to kiss his Toe three hundred and more Boons desired and a Secretary stood by on purpose to register them as they were granted but what was it they desir'd one ask'd to be a Provincial another a Vicar another a Guardian this a Bishop this a Cardinal this one thing this another but every one for their private advantage At last comes in a poor Lay-Brother of a Religious Order that had serv'd forty years in a Monastery only to draw water from morning to night out of a very deep Well for the use of the Kitchen which had spoil'd the softness of his Palm This poor over-wrought creature the Pope having made no exceptions of persons comes in and with great reverence desires in these words Most Holy Father if your Holiness shall please to vouchsafe me my request it shall be that you would condescend to bring a Fountain into our Covent for the benefit of our Fraternity who are very much put to it for want of water every Bucket full being to be drawn up from the bottom of a deep Well from whence your Holiness for your own use drew your share when you were formerly a Fryer in that Covent and truly I am troubled for the poor man that succeeds me in my office which I have executed this forty years as your Holiness may most graciously remember having often seen me at work from morning to night The Pope smil'd but mysteriously and as if there was something more than ordinary in the matter casting his eyes about sometimes on this Brother and sometimes on that for he had given order none should depart out of his presence till the whole business was concluded at last he casts them up to Heaven and cryes out Blessed be Almighty God that amongst so many Fryers that seek their own interest only there is one found that supplicates for the publick benefit of his Covent And having with some vehemence for a time declaim'd against the Corruption in their Religion he took his leave of the Fraternity in these words We were very bountifull in promising you your demands because we were of opinion you would be as zealous in desiring something for the publick advantage of your Orders But for as much as you have postpon'd the publick interest to your own We cannot think it just to gratifie your particular requests that are so remote from the benefit of the publick And with this answer he return'd them to their Covents full of indignation and wrath but for the satisfaction of the other he gave order immediately to have three or four Fountains made in the Apostles Monastery of the Order of St. Francis and one of them particularly in the Kitchin which he that is at Rome and has as much curiosity as I had may see at this day And in this manner in my judgement it will alwayes happen whilst those words of our Saviour Ask and ye shall receive seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be open'd unto you be apply'd by every one to his particular interest every one petitioning for his private advantage only without the least thought of the common good of Christendom And if every one complains and repines that his prayer is not heard the fault is in themselves that they pray not for the Publick whose interest is alwayes prae-consider'd by our Saviour In the Primitive times the Saints understanding what was fit for them to ask and seeking the common good of Christendom were alwayes gratifi'd in what they did ask but at present all the Cardinals desire is to be Popes the Abbots to be Bishops the simple Priests Canons the Gentlemen Princes the private Soulders the Governours of Towns the Merchants success in their affairs all riches and wealth but of the prosperity of the Church of the destruction of Heresie of the propagation of the Gospel not one word So as it is no wonder if Christ deals with them after the same rate as Sextus the fifth did with his Fryers But it is time to leave these commune considerations and with brevity to fall upon the most remarkable occurrences in the Church deducing them from its very Creation to this day it being necessary for the comfort and better information of the Reader to premise some general proofs of what we say and that because such discourses as are interlarded as it were with matter of History and examples drawn from certain Experience as mine I conceive are do awaken and with more efficacy excite the devotion of the Reader Though by the impiety of the Tyrants in those dayes the Church was bitterly persecuted in the persons of the Apostles yet all their violence and barbarity could not hinder but they went on still serving God with all sincerity of conscience till at last
well the qualities of them both we shall find some variety in their manner of Operation By Heresie is meant not only a difference in matters of Discipline but of Faith also and of this kind was the division introduc'd in the Primitive times by the Ebionites Marcionites and more particularly the Arrians Whereas by Schism is meant a difference or disagreement in the Orders and Exterior Policy of the Church and such was the dis-union the Donatists occasion'd in the Church in Africa by reason of Cecilianus his being chosen Bishop of Carthage they pretending he was illegally advanc'd to that Bishoprick and contrary to Ecclesiastical Rules so as they began at that time to write against their proceedings in that Case without medling at all with any principal of Religion But this difference does not alwayes hold in the same manner as I have stated it and the reason is because as Faith and Charity the two principal Theological virtues are observ'd to go alwayes and inseperably together so Schism and Heresie the two profest diametrical Enemies of those virtues go usually hand in hand insomuch as he that has no Charity will have but little Faith and he that has no Faith will have less Charity and upon this score St. Austin with the greatest part of the Doctors of the Church doubts not to pronounce Heresie nothing else but an old and inveterated Schism Schismaticks commonly are Domestick Enemies and by consequence more mischievous than Heresie which is as it were an open and declar'd Enemy And this Schism is many times nourish'd in the Church by the very Pastors that govern it so that Schism is often times the root from whence the Tree of Heresie grows to such a height it becomes very difficult to pull it up and hurts the hands of those that endeavour it And certainly he that has not the power or caution to suppress Schism must with more difficulty attempt the eradication of Heresie because if Schism in its Infancy as it was be found difficult to be suppress'd Heresie that is but Schism adult will be more difficult I have already declar'd that the greatest Schism that at this time reigns in the Church and insensibly tares the Bowels of it out is the observation all good Christians make of the great Scandals and Impieties of the Clergy and if any should be so far over-seen as to undertake their defence I would ask them but these questions To pass from the embraces of a wicked and meritricious woman to the Sacred Duties of the Altar is not that Schism to see the Priest of God celebrate Mass with Daggers at their Girdles and Pistols under their Vests is it not Schism To see I speak it with horror that Boy serving and attending the Priest as his Disciple in the Holiest part of his Office with whom he lay the night before and must again the next is not that Schism To hear hourly of Murders and other execrable Villanies committed in the very Cloisters is not that Schism To sell Benefices at a dear rate to keep open shop to negotiate for Simoney to take the Rings off the Virgin Maryes fingers and to put them upon a Harlots is not that Schism to fatten up the Popes Nephews with the Wealth of the Church is not that Schism In short what is this but a separation of themselves from the Rules and good Orders of the Church Is it not a dis-uniting of Faith and Charity a taring of the Church out of the Arms of our Saviour and a practising of things contrary to the practise of the Apostles And indeed things may be as they will in other parts of Christendome if we restrain them no better at Rome in which place there are thousands of these Schisms that will ruine the Church infallibly without some speedy remedy be apply'd their Corruption being at that height it is almost impossible to look upon a Priest with patience If the zeal of any good Christian carries him on so far as to correct or reprehend any of them for their Exorbitancies they will answer in their Excuse that even among the Apostles there was a Judas a Traytor and therefore as they would have them believe they ought not to be scandaliz'd at the ill example the Clergy gives to them These kind of excuses may seem good to those that use them but not to those that hear them I would to God amongst twelve Ecclesiasticks there was but one Judas to be found but I am affraid amongst a hundred of them that imitate Judas in their lives there will be scarce one found that lives like the rest of the Apostles Is it not Schism to hear a thousand of quarrels and disputes betwixt the Bishops and the Civil Magistrates betwixt Princes and Cardinals Priest and Priest Order and Order in the very Heart and Bosom of the Church The Religion or Order of Dominicans contends very fiercely with the Franciscan about Original Sin and will have the Virgin Mary as lyable to it as any other Creature whatever which they maintain very furiously in their Schools but with more Arrogance than Argument The Franciscan on the other side with the same Ardor pronouncing her immacculate I my self have upon several occasions heard poor ignorant Dominicans discoursing with that Insolence a poor Secular would have been burnt for half of it But these good Fathers are exempt from all punishment because they can command the Inquisition as they please chastising who they think fit and passing by such as deserve it being Judges to others and Princes to themselves Can there be greater Schism than to hear them disputing dayly and contending about the preceedence of one Order before another and sometimes with such passion that they fall together by the Ears battering one another in their very processions with the Crosses they bear to the no small Scandal of the Laity that to prevent Homicide and Blood-shed are forc'd to interpose Nor has this happen'd once or twice but a thousand times not in one City but a hundred I remember my self such a Combate one Corpus Christi day in the Lands of the Church betwixt the Agustins and another Order of Fryers whose name I have forgot as they were passing out of the Cathedral with their lighted Candles in their hands and the Bishops Vicar carrying the Host they fell into some difference about the preceedency and at last in spight of all exhortation to the contrary to blows striking one another with their Candles and burning one anothers Beards so as the Vicar had no other way but to command them home again to their Covents and adjourn the Procession a full hour Nor is there any Schism not only more scandalous but ridiculous in the Church than that betwixt the Conventual Fathers of the Order of St. Francis and the Cappuchins and for what great business I speak these things to Foreigners for those that live in Italy have them hourly before their Eyes For I know not what Devil
't is ignorance and indiscretion that causes all this and should the like case happen to me I could very well make the Father an answer The other was of a certain young Student that went to a Jesuite to Confession amongst other of his Confessions he told him that he had lay'n a whole night with his Fatherships Neice and began to faint almost under the shame and apprehension of his Sin so that he had no mind to proceed but the good Father to incourage him told him That it was no such great matter to lye a night with the Neice for he had ly'n ten years together with the Mother And with this good exhortation he sent the young man back to his house And this second Example I heard my self in a Sermon in a certain Town in the Territories of the Venetian Preach'd by an Augustine Fryer who by his face look'd as like to do such a business as the Jesuite And thousands of these instances may be heard dayly in their Pulpits the Church of Rome by reason of the licentiousness of its Ministers being the laughing-stock of the Catholicks and the obloquy of the Protestant And truly 't is sad that those Confessions that were at first requir'd as conducing to the Salvation of Souls should be turn'd now by the iniquity of the Confessors into the scandal of the Church The Bishops shut their eyes at every thing because the Cardinals connive at them The Cardinals commit all things to the Pope contenting themselves with the magnificence of their Station The Pope because they let him alone in a Pinnacle of Grandeur above all exhalation of scandal leaves them to themselves and retains his opinion of their Piety not regarding what Heresies the Ignorance Malice or Lasciviousness of his Confessors may create To this the Ecclesiastick answers that we ought not to look so severely to the faults of the scandalous because they are but frailties and so will be judged by the Divine Justice it self And for instance they alledge the example of Judas who was a Traytor even in the company of the Holy Apostles so as our eye they say ought not to be upon him but upon the rest To which I answer that if there were indeed but one ill Churchman in twelve all Hereticks both Jew and Gentile would be converted to the Faith but as the case stands there is scarce one good to be found in ten thousand bad and therefore how can they be converted that have so many scandals in their prospect But some will say perhaps how can these things be redress'd I answer with the greatest facility in the world if the Cardinals pleas'd I speak not of the Pope because let the Divines say what they will for His absoluteness to speak the truth the Church of God is not a Monarchy but a Republique the Cardinals and Bishops being Supreme and Soveraign Senators and the Pope as Christs Vicar President of the Senate for though Christ created St. Peter his Vicar he took not away the Authority from the rest of the Apostles they alwayes with Supreme Authority in their Colledge decreeing what ever they thought necessary for the benefit of the Church St. Peter being allow'd no more than his single voice So that the Care and Government of the Church belonging by legal succession to the Cardinals the right of appointing remedies against such scandals as do afflict us belongs likewise to them And indeed whilst the Church was under a kind of Aristocrasie Miracles and Holiness and Goodness were observ'd to flourish But since the Priests began to flatter the Popes conceiving preferment and advantages easilier obtain'd by the adulation of one person than a Senate they put all into the hands of the Pope and made him a Monarch so that Miracles were lost immediately Sanctity was banish'd and a thousand wickednesses introduc'd because that which was Monarchy in the hands of the Pope became Tyranny in those of the Nephews Insomuch that to reduce the Church to its Primitive Holiness it will be necessary to restore it to its antient Aristocrasie Since my being at Rome I heard of hundreds of Decrees put out by the Congregation of Regolars but I never heard of any of them put in Execution as they ought to have been the Popes for the most part having dash'd them motu proprio besides the application being superficial and only to the top branches of the Tree it was impossible it should reach the Corruption that was in the Root The wickedness of the Churchmen is like a Wart upon a mans hand the more you cut it unless you cut it to the bottom the greater it grows To put out fire it is necessary to remove that matter that sustains it and if the Cardinals would apply any remedy to the scandals that throng dayly out of the Cloysters to the detriment of the Church they ought not to consider the nature of the Fryers after they are made Fryers so much as the qualities of those who make themselves Fryers The Method of the Italians in this age I speak not of other Countreys is good indeed for the advancement of their Arms but not at all for the benefit of the Church For example an Italian that has three Sons picks out the wisest and most gentile and Marryes him to keep up his Family him that is most sprightly and vigorous he sends to the Wars and if any be more foolish or extravagant than other he is sent to the Covent In short those Fathers whose Sons are given to Theft to Drunkenness Lust Dissoluteness or Prodigality if they be Lyers Swearers Cheats Blasphemers c. do presently devote them to the Cloyster where putting on the Habit of a Fryer they put them out of their sight indeed but put them into a Religious house where they become Devils because wickedness or rather a heap of wickedness cannot be taken away by fifteen yards of Cloth Were these disorders but regulated a great part of the scandal that lyes at present upon the Church would be taken away 't is a shame the worst should be given to God and the best to the Devil 't were better to suppress Cloysters and Fryers than to suffer such Fryers to be made In the Church of Rome the quality of the persons that are to enter into Religious Habits is not so much consider'd as their quantity so their number be great no matter for the rest Cheats Back-biters the Hunch-back'd the Lame and the Blind are all admitted into the Cloysters as if the number not the qualities made the Religion O most diabolical policy and fit to be exploded Did it belong to me to supplicate the Pope and the Colledge of Cardinals I would do it upon my knees because I observe goodness and piety declining in the Church and all by reason of the multitudes of Priests whose qualities ought to be more regarded than their numbers One truly Religious man is worth a thousand wicked and edifies the Church more with
there is a Consistory there is never any Congregation for upon any intimation from the Pope that he would have a Consistory they leave the Congregation and repair thither The three Arch-Priestships of the three Cathedrals in Rome that is of Saint John de Lateran of Saint Peter and of Santa Maria Maggiore are alwayes in the persons of the Cardinals And of the dignity of these three Offices we may judge if we consider that there is not any of them falls but the present Pope bestows it immediately upon one of his Cardinal Nephews and the Popes do seldome confer any thing upon them but the best and most profitable offices in the Church Each of these Arch-Priests has his Deputy and he assigns him what profit he pleases which for the most part is the Revenue of a Canon They have each of them power indulg'd them to dispose of what Benefices Clerkships Chaplainships and other things that fall within their several Churches Every Pope also does usually allow each of them a Canonship The Arch-Priest of Saint John de Lateran administers Justice both in cases Criminal and Civil to all such persons that live within a certain distance from his Cathedral according to his Jurisdiction In the year of Jubily the Arch-Priest goes in his Pontificalibus with a great train on horse-back to his own Church to open the Holy Gate The Cardinal Deacon observes the same order in the Church of Saint Paul and the same Ceremony is us'd when the Holy Gate is shut again This is to be understood of the two Arch-Priests of St. John de Lateran and of Santa Maria Maggiore for the Pope in St. Peters Church opens and shuts the Holy Gate himself and noâ—â—he Arch-Priest In all these great Churches there are Penitentiaries that is to say the Jesuits in the Church of St. Peter the Franciscans in the Church of S John de Lateran and the Dominicans in the Church di Santa Maria Maggiore The Penitentiaries have good Lodgings and accommodations in each of theâ—e places where they live comfortably at the charge of the Pope or rather of the Church being oblig'd to be constantly in the Church to receive the Confessions of all that come thither to confess themselves Amongst these Fathers there are some that confess people in divers Languages and one of them in each Church has the Title of Rector All these Offices and Dignities that belong to the Cardinals only besides honor they bring great advantages to them but the Congregations have nothing but trouble and if they have any profit at all it is accompany'd with so many inconveniences that many had rather be without it for those incommodities would be more tollerable were they not joyn'd with something that is incompatible by the communication of continual disgusts and peevishness into the Breasts of those Cardinals that are deputed thither by his Holiness there being some of them of two or three several Congregations as if it were on purpose to multiply the inconveniences that do follow that appearance of honour Let it not seem strange if I say the Cardinals are sometime transported with rage in their Congregations because the Popes give them but too much occasion in not suffering any thing but their profit and advantage to be consulted and which is worse the Popes Nephews do spoil all their Politicks and after they are tyr'd and lost in the business they turn it over upon the mature prudence as they call it of the Congregations and Consistory as if the Cardinals like Taylors were only to patch up what the Nephews had torn in the Church The business of Castro has been so sifted and bandied about in the Congregations and Consistories that some of the Cardinals as is writ to me from Rome have it ringing perpetually in their ears so as they cannot sleep in their beds for it Others there are whose minds and imaginations are so full of it they run from one thing to another in their discourse and talk of Castro when they would have talk'd of Constantinople But some will ask me from whence comes this delay perhaps from the irresolution of the Cardinals No Sir from the irregular authority of the Popes who will do things in spight of the advice of the Cardinals but of that we have said enough already and shall not by a superfluous repetition rub up those old Sores that afflict the Church as well as the hearts of the Cardinals It is sufficient if I say his Holiness erected so many Congregations to conceal the infinite Enormities committed by the Nephews in the Government of the Church And these are the Congregation at Rome The Popes pretend and indeed will do all things and if the Cardinals know how to comply with the Wills of the Popes all is well otherwise he turns and winds them till at last they come about to the humour of the Pope and his Nephews In short the Cardinals consult in Rome and the Pope decrees according as he is advis'd by his Councel But the Cardinals do not so much as consult about any thing that is propos'd by the Pope and which he is resolv'd to decree I was ask'd lately by a friend that was an outlandish man what share the Cardinals had in the Canonization of a Saint to which I reply'd that they had a great deal of trouble by reason of the many Consistories that were held of which it will not be amiss to speak something by the bye The Popes before they proceeded to Canonization are wont to have four Consistories of Cardinals the two first are in private the third publick and the fourth betwixt both in the first the Pope gives answer to such Petitions as they have receiv'd from some Prince Province or City and refers it to three Auditors di Rota to examine the Process diligently who having made their report that it was well his Holiness recommends it again to three Cardinals to be re-examin'd whether it be agreeable to the Auditors report In the second Consistory the Cardinals to whom it is referr'd do declare that they have seen and consider'd the Process and that they find the report of the Auditors to be true The third Consistory which is publick is in the Sala Reggia where the Cardinals render their obedience and where the Advocate of the Consistory makes an Harangue of the Life and Miracles of the Saint In the fourth Consistory that is but half publick and held in the Sala Ducale the Pope comes with his Miter upon his head and his single Rochet upon his shoulders and there are present not only the Cardinals but the Patriarchs Arch-Bishops Bishops Auditors di Rota and Protonotaries The Pope inquires after every mans opinion whether that Canonization be to be made or not and if the Major part say yes he degrees him esse Canonizandum and appoints the day for his Canonization on which there are many Ceremonies us'd The Pope and the Cardinals are all in their Surplices with every
one a lighted Torch in his hand in which posture they go in Procession through the Piazza where the Guards of light Horse are drawn up as soon as they are come into the Church the Cardinals pay their Reverences and then there is a Hymn sung in the Quire that done three Instances are made by the Procurator of that Prince Province or City upon whose request the Canonization is made a Mass is sung and his Holiness presented with two young Turtles and other little Birds in two Silver Baskets many of which Birds are let go Mass being ended the Cardinals put off their Habits and attend his Holiness back again We have spoken thus far of what is done whilst the Cardinals are living it will not be amiss to observe something now that passes at their death A Cardinal being dead he is carried to the next Church to the place where he dy'd his body is laid upon a high Scaffold built on purpose on a quilt of Cloth of Gold dress'd in the same Habit he wore when he was admitted into that Order that is if he was a Bishop in his Rocher if he was a Priest in his Choppines if a Deacon in his Cassock with his wonted Mitre at his head and two Pontifical red Caps at his feet After Dinner all the Fryeries go to that Church and there say the Offices for the dead and cause a Nocturral to be rehearsed during which the Cardinals are in their Purple Habits and entring into the Church they put on their Copes of the same colour and that done they go and pray to the Host after that they advance to the feet of the Corps where saying a Pater Noster they sprinkle the Carcass with Holy water repeating some usual Verâ—â—s and Prayers for the dead and then they return to their places and this is perform'd by every Cardinal that is present but if there come more Cardinals than ordinary the anuentest performs the Ceremony for the rest they sitting still in their orders in the Church till the service is done The four Masters of the Ceremonies are assisting in like manner with their upper Garment of Purple Serge the Sergeants also in their long Purple Gowns with their Silver Maces in their hands with every one of them a Priests Cap given them for a present There are also two of the dead Cardinals Crowns standing by in mourning with two Bannerols of black Taffaty with his Arms painted upon them in their hands the Church is hung also with black with the Cardinals Scutchions fasten'd upon them and such Trophyes as are usual at the Funerals of great Persons They are buried for the most part in the Churches of their Titles with great Pomp the Fryers marching with great Tapers in their hands and after them the Major Domo the Bishops the Apostolical Protonatories on Mules pontifically with the Masters of the Ceremonies and his Holinesses Family in long red Robes and this Ceremony is alwayes perform'd about the four and twentieth hour But those that desire to be buried without any Pomp are carry'd privately in a Coach about two a Clock in the morning to the place where they are to be interr'd Those Cardinals that are descended from great Families and have rich Relations have their Exchequer in the Church where they are buried with noble Herses where the whole Colledge of Cardinals are assistant at the singing of Mass making Orations in praise of the Cardinal departed and performing other Ceremonies not unlike those before mentioned It is now time I return and say something to the general satisfaction and indeed though I may wander a little in some particulars my chief design is common satisfaction above all things else I think convenient to touch something in this place upon the Original of the Title of Eminence which is of that value now adayes amongst the Cardinals they would think him almost a Heretick that should deprive them of it But before we pass to the Titles of the Cardinals it will be requisite to say somewhat of the Titles of the Popes which are as great if not greater than the Titles of our Saviour differing only in point of duration â—ur Saviours being Eternal and the Popes but Momentary By the Law of Nature the Popes must leave their Title of Holiness taken up in the Vatican and dye like a corruptible worm whereas our Saviour whose Holiness is natural to him remains to all Eternity for what cause is it then that the Popes take such pains themselves and their flatterers also lay about them to heap Title upon Title upon them seeing in spight of all they can do they must dye and return to their first principals of dust and vanity The Holy Scripture pronounces Christ Impeccable the Books and Theologists of Rome do the same for the Pope Christ was call'd Holy so is his Holiness Blessed and so is he In the infancy of Christianity the light of Holiness shin'd out in the Consciences of Christians blessedness in their minds and their Impeccability in their Zeal and Ardour for the service of the Church which rewarded their labours with a Crown of Martyrdome Those Titles that are now in such esteem were not only undervalu'd then but with a Pious Zeal despised and abhorred the Popes and the Ecclesiasticks taking more glory in the humility of their Lives than in all the variety of Titles could be given them and upon what grounds Because being instructed by the Celestial love of the Holy Spirit they understood very well that giving way to the outward applause of the people it could not but communicate something of the venome of Ambition within which is the Harbinger of all the mischiefs in the Church Had any one in those dayes gone into the Popes presence with those Titles that are in such request at this present in Rome and the Vatican that is with the Titles of Blessed or Holy he would have been look'd upon as a most pestilent flatterer and have been banish'd the Vatican and made uncapable of any part of the benignity of the Pope or of any preferment in the Apostolick Sea and for what reason Because the Popes had then no need of begging those Titles from man when by their Repentance and Sackcloth their Fasting and Prayers their Mortifications and good Works that over-flow'd like a River the banks of the Church they both challeng'd and deserv'd them The good Popes did then labour from morning to night by their good works to demonstrate that they were bless'd already by that God that can alone give blessedness to man and therefore they despised that happiness that was got by ambition which make people happy only in the sight of the world They abominated as a Serpent that Holiness was given them by the Priests because they knew that that Holiness in the Tongue would be a pernicious Poyson in their Hearts Many there are as well devote as ingenious that have broke their brains almost to find out the reason for
the introduction of such throngs of Titles into the Church and after no small toyl they observed that the Pope and the Ecclesiasticks have scrambled as it were for them since there was brought in so much Riches to the Church so that the Wealth being increas'd their Ambition and Vanity is increas'd with it the lustre of Gold and the splendor of Silver do illustrate the Majesty of the Popes and gild over the comliness of the Ecclesiastick And this Mettal that with so much labour both of Prince and People is drawn out of the Bowels of the Earth where it was buried as if it had been asham'd to appear before the face of the Church as conscious of corrupting it at the very first sight and being enter'd of making such a noise in the breasts of those Ecclesiasticks that embrace it so greedily that in a short time there should be nothing but Ecchoes of flatrery heard in the Church every one striving with emulation to tickle the ears of the Pope who lull'd as it were with the Harmony delighted himself in that imaginary glory which by degrees rais'd up a whole Army of Vices to beleaguer the Rock of the Holy Church labouring by all means possible to banish Piety and Holiness of life from the Sanctuary of the Church For four Ages together the Popes liv'd without the least tincture of Vanity or Pride Humility and Modesty was all their practice whereby they kindled and excited Devotion in the hearts of the Faithful who had the good fortune to see the Church Govern'd by Pastors whose thoughts were humble and whose actions were modest The Titles the Popes then chose to distinguish themselves from the people were so poor and abject it inflam'd them with Obedience and communicated a Zeal to the most obstinate Sinners who could not but triumph in their Obedience to such Superiours as took more pleasure to serve than to command the Church What Heart of Stone what Conscience of Flint what Rock of Pride or Obstinacy would not have been reduc'd to powder to hear the Popes Christs Vicars Gods Vicegerents upon Earth Heads of the Church Supreme Ministers of Christianity and Pastors of the Flock of Christ call themselves with so much humility Poor Sinners Humble Servants of God and Servants of his Servants These were the Titles of Honour the Holy Popes in the blessed time of the Churches Infancy did so much glory in with these Titles which our present Ecclesiasticks do so much abominate did those Primitive Pastors draw millions of Sinners to repentance whereas now in this Age that abounds with so many Ecclesiastical Titles there is scarce one Proselite made after several months pains with all the Menaces of their Arms nor all the power of their whole Troops of Apostolical Missionaries but who could have been able to have resisted the Tears of those Popes that humbled themselves to all men Who would not willingly have turn'd to the Church of Christ to see the Governours of it so Humble Holy Devout and Pious Pope Gregory who was the first that took upon him the Title of Servant to the Servants of God presag'd very well when he gave this answer to a Cardinal that advis'd him against speaking so humbly of himself That there was not a more efficacious way to be found out to call sinners to Repentance than the humility in the Ecclesiasticks that had the care of them and another time it being told him by a Bishop that it was a prejudice to the Majesty of the Vicarship of Christ to debase himself as he did his thoughts being fix'd wholly upon humility he return'd this answer And how Christ our King saved the World by his Humiliation and shall we that are but his Servants govern it with Pride Experience teaches us so that we cannot pretend ignorance in this case and I know the Prelats that are enemies to flattery and zealous in the Service of God will not oblige me to lye they understanding very well the detriment the Church has receiv'd by the introduction of ambition into the hearts of the Ecclesiasticks and if they be silent it is because they are fearful of disgusting those that command in Rome Every one knows that whilst the Popes lived with their low and humble their abject and contemptible Titles Holiness of life did blaze as it were in the Lap of the Church the Christians living with a certain devout simplicity and glorying with just reason to acknowledge them for true and lawful Vicars of Christ and for worthy Successors to St. Peter those Popes that aspir'd not to the Papacy for the augmentation of the wealth of their Families or for multiplying worldly honours upon their own persons but as Servants of God to be serviceable to his Flock Those Popes I say that sought the Popedome not to domineer or insult to the prejudice of Princes but to humble themselves in favour of the people Who is it that is ignorant of the great miseries the poor Church has suffer'd Who is it that is not sensible of the dangers with which it has been many times overwhelm'd since that time in which the Popes began with so much vanity to disdain those low and humble those holy and devout Titles and to take upon them the most arrogant and lofty ones imaginable passing from Modesty to Pride from Humility to Haughtiness and from Ecclesiastical simplicity to the vanity of the World which at this present is too predominant Schisms Heresies and the destruction of Kingdoms from whence had they their original but from the invention and vanity of so many Titles that seem'd to be invented on purpose to disturb the peace of the Church Many do observe and that with no small displeasure that the Christian Church began to abate and fall off from its original splendour from that very time the Popes began to usurp the Titles of Holiness and Blessedness with these Titles were scruples brought amongst Christians so that what the faithfull did before affectionately and with all their hearts worshipping and owning the Popes to be Christs true Vicar upon Earth they could not afterwards be brought to by all their promises intreaties or threats being fearful they should err in calling the Pope Holy that had no Holiness and Blessed that had no Blessedness but what the Commodities of the world do usually afford The same thing or very like it is happen'd in the person of the Cardinals by the introduction and heaping of Titles upon Titles In the first Ages of the Churches Infancy the Cardinals were so humble and modest they thought the Title of Fratello nel Signore observandissimo most observant Brother in the Lord too high too great too eminent and faâ—â—igâ—â—us for them yet the same Title that the Cardinals took so much glory in then is now despis'd as too low by the vilest of the Clergy and the most abject Cook or Butler of the Cloyster The first Ebullitions of humility being over and the Rays of modesty that
with the dignity of the chief Priesthood Now begins contempts irreverences murmurs and many times seditions to arise the Laity by little and little losing the veneration and opinion they had formerly of the Ecclesiastick Piety and Justice And of this you have a good instance and accompt in the banishment of the Ministers of the Apostolical See out of France in the commotions at Avignon in the audacious liberty of those people that heretofore were obsequious and reverent in the whisperings and murmurs of all the other subjects of the Ecclesiastick State and in Schisms and Separations in all the rest both in Italy and other Nations These are the things the memory of which is a sharper affliction to my mind than my infirmites are to my body Our Divine Master most Holy Father taught us in that command Mitte gladium in vagina that there was nothing more undecent in him that had the Government of our Holy Innocent and meek Mother the Church than Temporal Arms and that she ought not to defended Mâ—re Castrorum From hence it is I am greatly afraid that God Almighty being offended at our manifest diffidence in him and our making use of improper means and contrary to the practice of the famous Popes of former ages will leave us to our selves and suffer us to be reduc'd to one of these streights either to be forc'd by our own necessities or our Enemies power to some disadvantagious agreement or else by a long and excessive expence be reduc'd to extreme misery and distress To give way to time and necessity was alwayes the Doctrine of a very wise Prince Paulus quintus undertook but meerly for the cause of God to proceed against the Venetian with his Spiritual Arms and was firmly resolv'd to have joyn'd his Temporal with them but at last out of his great prudence and compassion and upon consideration of his want of money the incapacity of the people to supply him the danger of over-running Italy with Foreigners and perhaps with some new Heresie or other for fear lest by the loss of the liberty of the Italians he should kindle an unextinguishable fire in all Europe and lest he should create too great animosittes against his own Family he suffer'd himself to be brought to a milder temper and perhaps not without some scruples and remorses of Conscience if the Church of God should by his fault receive any considerable damage and diminution Convert most Holy Father your Courage and Arms against the perils of Christendome and the pride of the Turk who as I hear to my extream sorrow is marching into Transilvania and Hungary to overwhelm those Countries as it were with an inundation against the Turk against the Turk let your magnanimity be oppos'd and with a generous emulation of Pius the second your most renown'd fellow Citizen lay aside all unprofitable controversies with your well deserving Son and let him and the other Princes of Christendome unite in a firm League and your Holiness be the Head and the Author of it What better occasion can there be than this to render your Name and Honour Immortal in all Ages If of late necessity constrain'd the impositions of some light Taxes upon those Religions that are now supprest forc'd you to make other use of the tenths impos'd upon the Clergy for the assistance of the Emperour and of the two hundred thousand Crowns left by the late Cardinal Mazarin to be expended in the War against the Turks tying up your hands as it were from actions of Charity and Alms with how much more glory and merit may you do it now Besides in so great and just an opportunity the application of the assignments to other use will open a large field to the maledictions of the people that the Flock of Christ is forsaken and expos'd to the capacity of that Woolf of the East the Patrimony of Christ destroy'd and all to maintain a private and meerly Temporal quarrel and to feather your own nest in the mean while And since by way of incidence I have spoken of Alms I will not omit representing to your Holiness the great trouble I receive by the relations of several Orders and Parishes in Rome of the great miseries that many poor familyes suffer which I shall not for brevity sake name though I am sure it would break your very heart and inforce you to tears should I give you an honest and sincere narrative of what they endure Oh how oft do I remember what before your happy Exaltation your Holiness us'd to tell me when inflam'd with a most charitable zeal you deplor'd the Exaltations that in the preceeding Popes time were obtain'd by the advancing of twenty thousand Crowns out of the Alms-money as if they would have it be believâ—d as your Holiness said then that there was no poor to be found in Rome and for that reason it was lawful to put that into their own purses which for their sustenance was gather'd dayly from the Charity of the Faithful They took likewise out of the Office deâ—la Componenda as your Holiness very well knows the Pontifical Alms-money against which the Hereticks have writ whole Volumns of Invectives and Satyrs not knowing perhaps that the Componenda is nothing but a kind of wholesome Pennance impos'd by the Popes upon such persons as have receiv'd from them some considerable favour not to be granted by any body else which said sum is afterwards to be dristributed amongst the poor or dispos'd for the nourishment of those that embrace our most Holy Religion And so I remember Pope Urban the eight was wont to say that the Popes Purse ought to be open'd freely and administer'd faithfully I humbly beseech your Holiness to take care that the same thing be observ'd in your Holiness his Papacy This Office della Componenda invites me to say something of the Dataria and other Tribunals your Holiness knowing very well that the most noble and most deserving quality that the people admire in any Prince is his generosity and munificence May your Holiness advert that neither the superfluous zeal nor the forward severity of your Ministers be suffer'd to obscure or eclipse your Glory remembring alwayes that amongst the disadvantages in Elective Principalities it is one of the greatest the leaving so much liberty to the Ministers to raise their own fortunes at the charge of their Prince as Pope Innocent knew how to do very well to one of his own That the good or bad report of either Pope or Prince proceeds from the moâ—ths of their Friends or Domesticks was the saying of Urban the eight and all the Court of Rome by reason that as they were ill or well satisfy'd so they spread their Characters about the world either to the prejudice or advantage of their Masters To keep the Cardinals poor abject and contemptible the Prelats idle without esteem or reward the Nobility neglected the Courtiers without hopes to see any recompence of their labours and
being likely to be vacant in a few hours by my death it may be conferr'd upon so worthy a person that the malevolent may have no occasion to say it is reserv'd for him that will give most without respect to any ones merits or to the necessities of our Religion in that Kingdom It remains that I should speak something about easiness of access which is a thing that gives a Prince good intelligence of his affairs makes his Government easie prevents the corruptions of his Ministers and conciliates love and veneration in the people Your Holiness who in the beginning of your Papacy did imitate herein the laudable Customs of your Predecessors Pius quintus and Clement the eight by the continuation of it will make your self admir'd Interpellantibus faciles praebendo aures nor will you be at any time upbraided with the saying of that importunate old Woman that cry'd out to Philip of Macedon Si non vis audire nec regnes In this case only I shall be bold to supplicate your Holiness and that with a most humble and devout zeal that you would permit your self to be diverted from that melancholly retirement and not suffer your self to be immur'd as it were betwixt four Walls and kept at that distance from the knowledge of the affairs of your State and the condition of your Subjects because that is the highest of all errors in a Prince and an occasion that Justice is ill administred the Ministers corrupt the people ill govern'd and oppress'd and the Prince no more belov'd nor respected Colligunt se quatuor vel quinquies aut unum Consilium ad decipiendum Imperatorem capiunt Dicunt quod probandus sit Imperator qui domi clausus est vera non novit cogitur hoc tantum facere quod illi loquuntur facit Judices quod fieri non oportet amovet a Republica quod debeat obtinere quid plura bonus cautus optimus venditur Imperator was the saying of Dioclesian and God grant it may never be verifi'd in the happy time of your Holiness his Government And here it would not be improper to speak something relating to the Election of Ministers and Counsellors for though a Princes ill fortune may have some share in the miscarriages yet for the most part mala electio est in culpa it being great difficulty to erre where all necessary diligence and circumspection is us'd The profound Judgement of your Holiness renders all advertisement in this affair superfluous however I will not omit supplicating you with Gregory Nazianzen and to admonish that in those that are by their Counsels and endeavours to assist in the management of the most weighty affairs of State these three signal Qualifications be resplendent Rerum usus Ingens charitas Os â—berum As to what concerns Spiritual things they ought to have been treated on in the first place but God knows whether the greatness of the peoples afflictions will suffer them to think on Heaven yet if I should have touch'd upon them I could not have done it without reflection on the great Piety of your Holiness who from your very assumption has made them appear to be the principal objects of your Pastoral care Nevertheless it will not be amiss to renew your Holiness Orders to such as have the superintendance and custody of Souls even to the Parish Priests and Confessors as well Regulars as Priests that they give no scandal themselves that they restrain the exorbitant liberty of sinning that they persecute and extirpate Blasphemy grown too common and familiar amongst the people in these unhappy times that they observe due reverence in the Church and set with more zeal and devotion in the Confessionaries Ne Deus iram suam effundat super nos The Evangelical Law most holy Father is at this day too much depress'd and the observation of the Divine Precepts with great blindness neglected in so much that Saint Cyprian and Saint Eusebius Bishop of Caesaria would with more justice have bewailed the corruption of our age than they did of their own seeing now a dayes student augendo Patrimonia singuli obliti quid credenâ—es aut sub Apostolis ante fuissent aut semper facere deberent insatiabili cupiditatis ardore ampliandis facultatibus incumbant Non in Sacerdotibus religio devota non in Ministris fides integra non in Operibus misericordia non in Moribus disciplina ad decipiendum corda simplicium callide fraudes circumveniendis fratribus subdolas voluntates non jurare tantum temere sed adhâ—â— etiam pejus perjurare And what can be expected from such detestable causes but those lamentable effects which Jeremiah prognosticated with so many tears Obscuravit in ira sua filiam Sion dejecit de coelo gloriam Israel Non est recordatus Scabelli pedum ejus in die irae suae sed demersit Dominus omnem decorem Israel demolitus est omnes spes ejus so as we may too justly cry out with Policarpe Bone Deus ad quae nos tempora reservasti God grant that our Church one day be not forsaken by the Divine protection by reason of the faults and enormities of the Ministers that govern it so ill and that she have not tâ—o just cause to cry out with tears in her eyes Deus Deus meus ut quid dereliquisti me Hence it is that being more afflicted with the unhappy condition of the World of Christianity and of Religion than with the bitterness and atrocity of my disâ—ase I betake my self to our Saviour and cry out from the very bottom of my heart Cupio dissolvi esse tecum And now finding my spirits failing me I lay by my pen that I had taken up again three or four times and prostrate my self with all Reverence begging your Holiness his Benediction and recommending to your Paternal charity the soul of your most sincerely devoted Servant who being in a short time to appear before the Tribunal of God to give an account of every one of his thoughts is certain he never had the least of deceiving your Holiness by these faithfull representations I do on the other side assure your Holiness that in the very life to come I will not cease to pray to our most loving Father ut sis longaevus super terram and that he would preserve your Holiness from all dangers and from the malice of Flatterers that are the plague and destruction of all Kingdoms and Principalities that he would give you Cor docile sedium suarum assistricem sapientiam and the same special grace as to the rest of his Servants ut siâ— transeatis per bona temporalia ut non amiâ—â—atis aeterâ—â—a May that infinite Goodness that governs all things assist and alleviate with his Divine arm the great weight of your Holiness his charge that you may not be oblig'd to relye upon the help of Man And thus with most tender and entire Reverence I bid your Holiness adieu embracing
it Would you would you who are affraid to defend the interest of the Church in the presence of your Popes that suffer it to be destroy'd by the insatiable hands of their Nephews would you bear the Title of Apostles God grant the Cardinals meet not with these interrogations at the day of Judgement I know there are some that are partial in defence of the Cardinals who will produce hundreds of examples to prove their zeal towards the Church and instance in several tortures and injuries have been suffer'd for opposing the ill Government to speak no worse of the Popes of whose wickednesses all Christendome rings to this very day Is it not true will they say that by Alexander the sixth those Cardinals were miserably afflicted that would not consent to the barbarous will of his Bastard that tyranniz'd over the world and imagin'd by fear and violence to make the Popedome hereditary to the house of Borgia so that according as the zeal and constancy of the Cardinals was augmented so did indignation increase in the Breast of the Pope insomuch that every word and intimation of their resentment to the Pope begat in him fresh thoughts of revenge till at last to remove and free himself from all opposition that Table was prepar'd in which instead of seeing the destruction of the Cardinals and the establishment of his own house Rome recover'd her liberty by the death of the Pope who was poyson'd with the same potion he had provided for the Cardinals Is it not true that the proud humour of Paul the fourth not being able to endure a Companion in the Government to stop the mouths of those Cardinals that excited by their zeal reprehended the barbarous deportment of the Carafechi gave himself over to the destruction of all respect and confounding his spiritual weapons with his Temporal he threatned them sometimes with Excommunications and sometimes tormented them with Imprisonment without any regard to the scandal Christianity receiv'd thereby so as he had but room for his revenge he car'd not how any thing went by which means all the Prisons in Rome were full of innocent Prelats and Cardinals Is it not true that several Cardinals and those the most Catholick and Zealous amongst them all foreseeing the detriment the Church would and indeed did receive by the tedious Pontificacy of Vrban to prevent further inconveniences that were like to follow upon all Christendom assembled themselves many times and had several Congregations for the deposing the said Vrban from the Papacy which he had already injoy'd for the space of thirteen years with small satisfaction to the Cardinals though with much advantage to his own Family Insomuch that whilst his Holyness under pretence of change of Air after a long indisposition had removed himself to the Castle of Gondolfo the Cardinals had secretly assembled a Congregation for the Election of Cardinal Zacchia Pope upon pretence of Vrban Barbarino's indisposition with resolution to shut up the said Vrban in the Castle of Saint Angelo But their design miscarried for the Pope having intelligence of all return'd privately to Rome and calling a Consistory in which all the Cardinals were present the said Vrban with a loud voice demanded Where was their new Pope that he might pay him his respect An expression that struck confusion into the hearts of those Cardinals that had conspir'd his deposal and found themselves so unexpectedly discover'd And this gave so great occasion of Revenge to the Pope that he immediately publish'd a Bull in which he commanded all the Cardinal Bishops and Arch-Bishops and all such as had the Cure of Souls to repair forthwith to their several Churches and Residences upon pain not only of Excommunication but of being depriv'd also of their Dignities and Benefices so that all those who were assisting in the foresaid Congregation were in great trouble and perplexity and particularly the Cardinal Ludovitio and Zacchia being principal contrivers of the design fell into so great melancholly for the miscarriage of it that they dy'd with very apprehension that it was discover'd To this it may be answer'd that Alexander the sixth receiv'd the punishment he deserv'd by which it may be clearly discern'd that God Almighty fails not to justifie the cause of his Church and protect such as address themselves to its defence and to the ruine of such as endeavour to trouble the repose of those that go about to defend it So that the example of Alexander who was poysoned by the same Cup he had provided for those Cardinals that had oppos'd him with so much zeal may rather excite that Sacred Colledge to the incouragement and protection of the people and the Church being secure that if they shall be persecuted by the Popes they shall on the other side be rewarded by God himself In the same manner it happen'd to Paul the fourth though he was a severe Enemy to those that with great and continual acclamations cry'd out against his Nephews to the end that Rome might be deliver'd from so great a Plague nevertheless that Pope by the means of the continual twinges and compunctions that he felt recollected himself discover'd his errour and not only banish'd his Nephews from the Vatican but seem'd likewise to own and gratifie their importunities that had open'd his eyes and given him occasion to discover the danger his own Person and the Church were in Of Vrbans Case I shall speak but little for though he was a Pope indeed too much addicted to the interest of his Kindred who govern'd the Church with that insolence and pride that render'd them odious to the whole world Nevertheless in matters relating to the benefit of Souls he was very solicitous to give general satisfaction whilst the mischief from his Nephews extended no further than to the Ecclesiastick Treasure which is the Patrimony of Saint Peter Besides this those Cardinals that negotiated his deposal did it not so much out of any Christian zeal or ardent instigation from their duty but rather in compliance with the Spanish Interest which was then thought with great reason to be offended and therefore in all this conspiracy there were none but the Spanish Cardinals concern'd so that if the crime be consider'd the punishment was but small for when the hand is once put to the Plough there is no looking back He that attempts to correct the Errors of the Pope must divest himself of all Humane interest and arm himself with the Celestial only The Cardinals must lay aside particular interests in the defence of the Church and have regard to nothing but the Publique 'T is the glory of God and not the love of the World that ought to animate them to the protection of Christs flock lest they be devour'd by those Shepherds that are too often no better than Wolves If in the hearts of the Cardinals a flame of Divine zeal be kindled in vain will all the tempests and calamities of this World endeavour to quench it To
ordination belongs to themselves Let them force themselves and endeavour the repose of the Church let them have an eye over the affairs of the poor whose lawfull Princes they are and let them not as they value the praise of the World and the benediction of Christ forget the Jurisdiction that was given them by him If the Popes by debasing the Authority of the Cardinals have erected their own Monarchy why do not the Cardinals by depressing that of the Pope exalt themselves to the condition of Senators in the Christian Common-wealth If the Popes have thought good for the private advantage of their particular Families to change to the great detriment of the Cardinals the Republick of Christ into a Monarchy for their Nephews why shall not the Cardinals for the benefit of the Church subvert that Monarchy and re-establish the Republick of Christ Christ did not call them to the Apostleship to make them Deacons of Apostles but that they should watch over and superintend that the Offices of the Deacons were executed well In Republicks the Dukes are not chosen to destroy the Senators but on the contrary they keep up the Grandeur of the Senators to render their own Authority the more Majestick Let the Cardinals therefore have a care it fares not with them as it did with a Souldier of Alexander who being ask'd his Name by the Emperor and answering Alexander his actions being not answerable to his Name the Emperor reply'd Either leave the Name of Alexander or do as Alexander does And certainly the Cardinals ought either to act like Cardinals and vindicate that dignity God has given them as principal Ministers in his Church or relinquish that Eminent Title The habit makes not a Monk nor the Purple Robe a Cardinal if that were so there would not want Purple to make Cardinals nor habits to make Monks The zeal of Religion the safety of the Christian Common-wealth the protection of the People the care of the Cures the administration of the wealth of the Church the banishment of Vice Sweatings and Labourings and Watchings for the augmentation of the number of the Faithfull and the propagation of Christianity are as the Poles upon which the Wheel of Cardinalism ought to turn If a Cardinal goes this way to work tyres and harrasseth out himself in prosecution of the virtues aforesaid he will be a Cardinal indeed though he wears no Purple but if he shuts his eyes and leaves all things forsaken and deserted he may have as much of the Purple as he please but he will have nothing of the Cardinal The Cardinals tremble at the very Name of the Pope and yet it is they themselves that give him his Papacy They humble themselves at the beck of him who proceeds from their own bowels they are contented to be stript of their Authority to invest him with it that robb'd them The Protestants deny the whole power of the Pope and in their Schools bring many arguments to refute it yet they allow more dignity to the Cardinals than they know how to ask of his Holiness They say that if the Pope could be contented to be a Cardinal amongst the Cardinals and the Cardinals as Popes with the Pope the Church of God would be restor'd to the true form in which it was created in the infancy of Christianity when the Apostles were Peters and Peter as the Apostles and they would not find that difficulty of closing with our Church which by that means would be Universal and not particular whereas now they are glad of any opportunity to distract it because they see it particular by reason of the absolute Authority that is given to the Pope I was a while since invited to dinner by a Friend of mine and by accident there were several Protestants and some Catholicks at the Table About the latter end of dinner the Catholicks with great freedom began to discourse it was in the time of the vacancy of the Chair of the discord and dissention amongst the Cardinals one of them instanc'd the example of the Apostles who when the Holy Spirit descended upon them were Congregati in unum applying all to the difference betwixt the Apostolick Colledge in these times in which they are at variance and what it was in the Primitive when there was nothing but meekness and charity and love Amongst the rest there was a French Gentleman indifferently well learn'd and of a pleasant conversation who taking the word from the other reply'd smilingly that those words Congregati in unum might very justly be apply'd to the Apostolick Colledge in being with this difference only that the Apostles then were Congregati in unum with Christ and now they are Congregati in unum with the Pope And â—e had gone further had he not been interrupted and forc'd to rise from the Table upon an unexpected visit that was made which altered the whole discourse I who had then this Cardinalism in my head and resolv'd to make an end of it and publish it to the world began to make some reflection upon what the French man had said and I found his opinion was not â—ll grounded so much did it correspond with mine For in truth in Rome where the Congregations are infinite the Cardinals are Congregati in unum not in their judgements or desires in which many times there is so much discrepancy that every Cardinal has a several opinion but in a resolution to do whatever his Holiness commands them They are Congregati in unum because in the Consistories they conclude of nothing but what is dictated by the Pope From whence it happen'd that a Cardinal of a very profound judgement that liv'd in the time of Innocent the tenth being ask'd one day whether he went he answer'd To Donna Olimpia's Congregation implying that that Lady having the absolute management of his Holiness her Cousin it was necessary to observe her orders exactly whether they were good or bad and indeed some few that would needs peevishly and obstinately withstand her Commands found but little ease or advantage by it Were the Cardinals Congregati in unum for a good understanding amongst themselves as they are Congregati in unum to do what ever they are commanded by the Pope the Church would be better serv'd than it is the State would flourish in plenty and peace and the Nephews reduc'd to their primitive indigence and necessity The Popes do rejoyce if not contrive to see the minds of the Cardinals divided as much fearing the consequence of their unity and a certain great Pope that lived in our age was wont to say That the division of the Cardinals was the exaltation of the Popes a saying as Diabolical as Politick which discover'd clearly that the intentions of the Popes were fix'd upon the Supremacy they injoy that is to keep and conserve the Monarchy of the Church in their own absolute Dominion though to the utter destruction of all that oppos'd them and because there is no
visible opposition to be made but from the Society of Cardinals who are indeed the true Senators of the Christian Commonwealth for that reason the good Popes make use of a thousand wheedles and pretences to bereave them of that Senatorial dignity and to bring the absolute Dominion both in Temporals and Spirituals to depend upon their own pleasures and wills But here it may be objected that I do contradict something I have said in another place viz. that many Popes have by their particular vigilance endeavour'd to aggrandize the Cardinalitial Majesty sometimes by magnifying the reputation and credit of the Cardinals sometimes by declaring them to be like Kings and sometimes by advancing their Titles To which I answer that if things be examin'd neaâ—ly there will no contradiction be found True it is the Popes have taken great pains to increase the Grandeur of the Cardinals but not to raise by that Grandeur any real profit to the Cardinals but that the Majesty of the Cardinals may contribute to the augmentation of their own Grandeur The Popes allow the Cardinals as much authority as is sufficient to render them serviceable to them but in other things they regard them not a joâ— They are not so weak to divide that Monarchy that in their hands is intire to give it to the Cardinals by whom they will be serv'd That Pope that declar'd the Cardinals equal to Kings had no regard but to his own ambition to the end the height of his Pontificacy might be the more illustrious by how much he had Kings in his Service In short the Popes are very liberal in conceeding ample Privileges and outward Magnificences to the Cardinals Let them have the preceedence of Princes let them go Cheek by Jole with Kings let them have the Prelates for their Slaves and transcend the Episcopal dignity all is well these things shall be allow'd them by the Popes and the people oblig'd under pain of Excommunication to be contented But let them have a care withall that they meddle not with the publick Treasure that they touch not the Alms-money that they question not the actions of the Pope that they do not recommend the causes of the afflicted that they press not the disposal of offices and preferments to persons of merit that they look no further than they are desir'd that they do not work or insinuate themselves into any command but as they are directed and in a word not so much as to mention the Robberies and Extortions of the Nephews if they do they will be banish'd the Court frown'd upon by the Nephews turn'd out of their Offices and treated as the vilest of their Subjects without any respect at all to the Purple they wear And of this several examples have been seen in our dayes I could name more than four Cardinals that are now alive and perhaps I shall name them when I come to speak of them in particular who for having follow'd the dictates of their own reason and for refusing to comply with the extravagant desires of the Nephews were reduc'd to that exigence they were forc'd to beg their protection from Foreign Princes So implicitely do the Popes pretend the Cardinals are to obey them without asking so much as why or wherefore This method of proceeding was very well known to a certain Cardinal Padrone or Nephew of a Pope that dy'd not full thirty years since who being in discourse one day with his Unckle about certain persons that were to be promoted to the Cardinalship his Unckle insisting upon the merits of some persons and the service they had done to the Church The Nephew did what possible he could to put them out of his Holinesses mind and to recommend others that were in his head if not in his purse and because the Pope consider'd his Pastoral obligation he would not turn from his resolution but to pacisie his Nephew began with sober and grave reasons to demonstrate the advantage that would accrue to his Family by obliging persons of that virtue and merit to his party But the Nephew that was of another opinion reply'd boldly to his Unckle That be had no need of Cardinals but in the Conclave so that it was of little importance to him whether his Creatures were virtuous or otherwise if they were but wise enough to give their voices there I doubt not but if there are already none there will be others of this opinion and which is worse the Cardinals will not know what remedy to apply the evil being ulcerated and gone too far But that would be done by the tryal of one single medicine which should be by renewing that Congregati in unum not in unum with the Pope but in unum with Christ by serving the Church before the Pope and the Flock of Christ before his Nephews otherwise to repeat what I said before let their names be chang'd and instead of Cardinals of the Holy Church let them be call'd the Popes Cardinals as indeed they are If the Pope creates them for his own service only and his Nephews let them not pretend to the Apostolick office and if they be created for the Churches service why do they stick so close to the interest of the Nephews if the affairs of the world go on with the same vicissitude as formerly other things will be seen in time However either death must follow or some remedy must be apply'd a disease that increases so fast can never last long but perhaps that which men are afraid to do lest they should prejudice their own interest may be done by God Almighty himself who takes the only care of the interest of the Church I was upon a time in a Stationers Shop in Bolognia in which they were discoursing of the insatiable desire the Nephews had of heaping up wealth and of the carelessness of the Cardinals in preserving the Treasure of the Church as they ought and to speak truth I had a particular fancy to understand an expression of an Academick of Bolognia who said the Cardinals were of three sorts the first were such as aim'd to be Popes the second of meaner designs and the third the Princes That the Cardinal Princes took that habit upon them for the interest and advantage of their particular houses and took but little care of the Church because they had little from her but their bare Titles the poorer and more interested Cardinals look'd no further than the gaining of some Abbeys or Bishopricks for their own conveniences laying aside all other considerations lest they might lose their designs the Cardinals that pretended to the Papacy that they might not hazard that fortune that depended upon the votes of other people would pretend not to see the Turks themselves should they come to take possession of the State And of this opinion I suppose there are many more in Rome than in Bolognia But that which seems most strange to me is that the Cardinals should have all the trouble and the
affairs This Cardinal may with maturity of years make a pass in the Conclave as well as any of the rest GIO. NICOLA CONTI is a Roman of an antient Family that has several times afforded illustrious persons to the Church and by whom it has been serv'd with all punctuality and honour This Lord has had several ordinary imployments and discharg'd himself indifferently well The greatest of his Offices was the Government of Rome which he began to exercise with great severity having declar'd to his Holiness himself that he would proceed in an exact way of Justice without partiality to any body But in a short time he had chang'd his opinion and was observ'd to follow other things instead of severity especially if any thing relating to the satisfaction of the Nephews was in debate for he was grown very carefull of giving them any disgust as complying in every thing there though with never so much injury to Justice Besides this he is thought to have been too indulgent to the recommendations of the Cardinals and Nobility of Rome that are his Friends and Relations at whose instances he has discharg'd several Prisoners that were more worthy to have been corrected Not that he can be charg'd with Bribery his hands are clean enough from that though he be none of the liberalest persons about the Court. It cannot be deny'd but there are several good qualities in him that may make him capable of being an Ornament to his Dignity although he fell into some frailties before he took the Prelacy upon him that are not worthy to be remembred though he be now prudent enough to make the goodness of his deportment satisfie for the evil that is past He fails not to endeavour to raise himself as much as he can and he takes that way that is most likely to give him reputation in the Conclave He deals with the French and the Spaniards so that when he is arrived at a competent age if there be occasion he may incline them both to be his Friends He has many Relations both Souldiers and Prelates that would not be at all offended to see him Pope Alexander had several reasons for his Creation but the chief was to fortifie his own Family by obliging of a person of so great Alliance in Rome he made him Cardinal with the Title of Santa Maria in Traspontina GIACOMO NINI of Siena has been scrambling after Honours and Offices from the time he took the Ecclesiastical habit upon him and has left no stone unturn'd to arrive at his designs His ambition put him forward so that he several times attempted to have been made Nuntio but his insufficiency was too well known at Court to succeed therein he having but little of the Politicks that are necessary to make a good Minister of State as failing often rather out of honesty than any thing else Yet he thinks himself able to deal with the greatest Politicians in Rome because he has a little smattering in Learning and an obliging way with his Complements and fair words which in reality signifie not much for he speaks oftner with his tongue than his heart because he has no great foundation of reason though he wants not some ordinary Maximes Alexander the 7th in consideration of his Country and other things made him Maggior domo of the Apostolical Pallace after he had honour'd him with other offices and finally created him Cardinal in his last Promotion but one with the Title of Santa Maria della pace which Promotion gave great disgust to the Cavalier della Ciaia Unckle to Chigi that at the same time pretended to the Cardinalship and seeing Nini preferr'd was ready to run mad But though Nini had scarce merits enough for a Cap yet he deserv'd more than Ciaia The report was at first that Cardinal Chigi was the person that had driven on the interest of Nini and made him a Cardinal but it appear'd afterwards that it proceeded from the meer pleasure and inclination of the Pope Before his death there happen'd some differences betwixt Chigi and Nini but by the interposition of the Conclave Chigi was oblig'd to reconcile himself with Nini after the best manner he could which he did When Cardinal Anthonio Barbarino went thorough France to the possession of his Arch-Bishoprick he left his Vineyard near San Pancratio to Cardinal Nini during his absence which gave the Spaniard great suspition that he was inclining to the interest of the French GREGORIO BARBARIGO a Venetian was created at the nomination of the State of Venice with the Title of San Tomaso in Parione Nor did the Pope make any difficulty in the Promotion of so worthy a person that had given continual testimonies of an excellent Prelate from the very time he first enter'd into the Ecclesiastical habit and has confirm'd them since by the exemplariness of his life free from those scandals that at present are so numerous in Rome Amongst the rest of his virtues which are considerable and proper for a person of his dignity one eminent one is his Cordial affection for his Countrey by which he obliges that wise Senate that is seldome ungrateful to continue a grateful correspondence with him upon all occasions After the death of Monsignour Giorgio Cornaro the Bishoprick of Padoa was conferr'd upon him which is one of the best Bishopricks I will not say in that State for they have no other like it but in all Italy and because his Predecessor being a great Cavalier and of one the most renowned Family in Venice had suffer'd some abuses to grow till they had obscur'd in great part the glory of the Clergy Barbarigo not being able to see so considerable a Church under such enormities he instituted a Congregation of pious and good Priests to reform them giving them ample authority to effect it This new manner of Congregation unknown to the rest of the Bishops was at first ill interpreted at Rome so that some envious people spake of it after a pungent and satyrical way but the Pope commended it much and exhorted them to follow so good an example The Clergy of Padoa that were dissolute and loose thought that resolution too severe but those of any Piety or Religion commended it to the Skyes In short this Cardinal was alwayes full of zeal both to his Church and to his Countrey PIETRO VIDONI of Cremona made up his fortunes not so much by the exemplarity of his life as by the subtlety of his wit His mind was alwayes inclinable â—o holy Orders and averse to Matrimony though not altogether free from such Carnal affections as are too common in the Clergy of our dayes In the beginning of his Prelacy he fell into certain little errours but he knew well enough how to excuse himself and to stop the mouths of all such as spake any thing to his prejudice In the beginning of Innocents Pontificate he was imploy'd in certain offices but they were of no considerable trust and though he
is believed this Cardinal will not prove inferiour either to his Unckle or Brother as having besides his generosity and natural Majesty talents sufficient for the management of State affairs besides a competent skill in matters Ecclesiastick and Military but in the first especially as having from his youth been curious in History and very serious in making reflections to his advantage In a word there cannot nor ought not any thing to be said but that this Cardinal is a great and most excellent Prince GIACOMO ROSPIGLIOSI is his Holinesses Nephew with that Title created Cardinal and which is of more importance Cardinal Padrone he is the eldest Son of Seignour Camillo Rospigliosi the Popes Brother a person that deserves to be Brother to the greatest Monarch in the Universe The great expressions of joy that he made at the exaltation of his Brother was nothing but a liberal distribution of provisions to the poor benignity and charity to the distressed being his natural endowments nor was it the poor of Pistoia only that participated of his alms but the poor of the whole Ecclesiastical State almost for in his journey from Pistoia to Rome he dispens'd so largely amongst them all that it was much admir'd from whence that Treasure should come which indeed was his own for he had not began to suck the honey of the Church In the Castle of Gondolfo which was the first place in which he presented himself to his Holiness his Magnificence and Piety to the Poor and to the Religious was most conspicuous for besides that at his arrival he open'd the prisons dismiss'd the Debtors and with his own money satisfy'd their debts he restor'd those Criminals that were restrain'd upon any honourable accounts and reliev'd all such of the poor as were inclin'd by the great noise and report of his Charity to come to that place having reliev'd the Church of the Mendicants in like manner so that the acclamations were too great to be express'd in Paper many there were nevertheless that thought all this but hypocrisie and a design upon the popular applause that he might afterwards have the management of the Treasure of the Church with more liberty and this opinion increas'd much when it was consider'd that in the beginning he deny'd to go so suddenly to Rome that he had refus'd to take the charge of General of the Holy Church upon him which was usually conserr'd upon the Brother or next Kinsman to the Pope and upon his refusal it was accepted by the Duke of Sermoneta who out of his natural bounty offer'd to execute it without pay and to set out that for the payment of the debts of the Chamber yet he alter'd his mind nevertheless and got possession of the said command and of all the other opulent offices that were vacant by the death of Don Mario Chigi But be things as they will he is most certainly a generous charitable and noble person and as yet not so much given to covetousness as several others are The Mother of the Cardinal and Wife to Don Camillo of the house Cellisi and own Sister to the Cavalier Cellisi of the order of Malta is a Lady of good judgement and well experienc'd in the Government of her own Family but being born in a pittifull City out of all courtship and entertainment she seems to be discompos'd with the multitude of her visits so that the Nephews do strive to instruct and render her the more gentile a Princess which thing is feasible enough for Donna Beruice Wife to Don Mario had no better breeding than this Lady when she came first to Rome and yet in a short time she became so exquisite in all the formalities of the Court that she out did all them that were born in Rome The Cardinal has three Brothers besides the first is Vincenzo a Knight of Malta about thirty years old of indifferent parts civil and something Lordly in his deportment The second is Don Thomaso about twenty five years of age but not so crafty as his Brother though his humour be busie and cunning likewise The other Brother that is but young is called Don Gregorio who without doubt in time will be the most skilfull of any of them in the affairs of Rome as having opportunity to acquaint himself therewith even now in his youth It is believ'd if his Holiness lives another year he will without fail make one of these three a Cardinal as Vrban the eight did who notwithstanding all the Decres of the Councels created two Brothers Cardinals but in those dayes they thought of-nothing but heaping up wealth without measure The Cardinal has two Sisters likewise one of them marryed to a Nobleman of the house of Pangiatici and the other to a Noble man of the house of Banchieri whom they likewise instruct in the manners of the Court. The Abbot Rospigliosi had alwayes a particular inclination to follow the Ecclesiastical habit and the person of his Unckle who being admitted into the Prelacy began to make himself taken notice of for a person of great hopes and on the other side his Unckle who had alwayes a great affection for his Brother Don Camillo who had already a numerous Family to ease him of those cares that Sons do usually give their Parents and that he might have one of his own blood to be near him for his Confident and that he might instruct him in publick affairs he writ to his Brother Camillo that he should send Giacomo his eldest Nephew to him which he did and he arriv'd in his Unckles Palace in a very youthfull and brisk age About this time Monsignour Rospigliosi being declar'd Nuntio to Spain was in great doubt whether he should carry his Nephew along with him so young for he was not then past 15 but knowing the good Genius of his Nephew very well and that he was given to no vice that might rob him of the bounty of his Unckle but that on the other side his age being consider'd he was endu'd with a modest gentleness that gave him great hopes being advis'd therefore by his friends and dispos'd by his own inclinations he resolv'd to take him along with intention to improve his studyes at Salamanca and indeed he was no sooner arriv'd in Spain but he sent him thither where he took his degree of Doctorship before came away Rospigliosi being created Cardinal and first Secretary of State and being return'd from Spain took his Nephew Giacomo with him employing him first in drawing Letters of no great importance for great business he deserv'd wholly to himself In brief this Abbot whilst he bore that Title as young as he was did great honour to his Unckles Family who slipt no opportunity on his side to advance him as he did in making him Cupbearer to Cardinal Chigi in which employment he gain'd much upon the affections of Chigi who held him for a youth of no ordinary knowledge About this time the accident happen'd to the
Emperour Of Otho's seeking revenge for the said Bull. Of the deposal of John the XIII from the Papacy and of his restauration to the See Of Pope Benedict's banishment to Hambourg by the Emperour Of Leo's restauration to the Papacy after he had been deprived by the people Of a Declaration of Leo's against the priviledges of Charles the Great Of the hatred conceiv'd thereupon by the Romans against the Pope Of the Popes being imprison'd by the people and of the revenge the Emperour took upon the Authors thereof Of the Popes imbezzlement of the Treasure of St. Peter Of his flight to Constantinople Of the Election of the Pope return'd into the hands of the people Of the Emperours resolution to have one of his kinsmen Pope Of Pope Gregories being driven out of Rome by the fury of the people and what follow'd thereupon Of the Election of the Emperour transferr'd by Pope Gregory upon certain Princes of Germany and upon what grounds Of the exclusion of the people from the Pontifical Election Of the Creation of three Popes at once Of the Schism appeas'd by Pope Alexander Of the Election of the Pope remaining only in the hands of the Cardinals Of the Assumption ef Pope Alexander and the Schisms in his time Of the service the Venetian did to the Church against the Emperour Of the obligation the Popes do profess to the Venetian Of the absoluteness of the Cardinals authority in the Pontifical Election Of the place where they assembled to Elect. Of the manner of their proceeding in the Election and the ill consequences thereupon Of a two years and nine months vacancy of the See Of the Assumption of Pope Gregory the X. Of the Reconciliation of the Venetian and Genoese Of the Conclave introduc'd by Gregory the X. Of certain tumults in Viterbo Of the Apostolick See being transferr'd into France by Clement the V. Of Saint Bridgets Letter to Gregory the XI Of the return of the Apostolick See into Italy Of the indignation of the Italians to see the Pontificate so long in the hands of the French Of a Schism that lasted 15. years Of certain accidents in the Papacy of Eugenius Of Amadeo Duke of Savoy's Creation Of his virtues and renuntiation of the Papacy Of what happen'd in the Conclave of Eugenius and of the exaltation of Nicholas the V. Of the Assumption of Calisto the III and of his death Of many politick discourses at the Creation of Eneas Piccolomini who was afterward Pius the II. And of some particulars in relation thereunto THE Church has been and not improperly resembled in the first cryes of its Infancy to a Ship tumbl'd by the Waves and batter'd by the Winds because She was to be nourish'd and brought up in the midst of the proud Billows of so many Ecclesiastical Disputes so many Theological Opinions so many Dissentions and Politick Reasons and expos'd by the ambitions of their own Mariners to thousands of Dangers and Storms which Schisme and Heresie have constantly produc'd with such fury as would have doubtless not only hindred her happy and victorious entrance into the Haven of Safety but have hazarded to have sunk and overwhelm'd her in those very Waves had not a favourable Gate of Protection been oppos'd by that Redeemer who has not nor will not endure to see that Vessel perish which he built at the expence of three and thirty years sweat with the Wood of his own Cross joyn'd together and rivetted with the Nails of his Hands and Feet cemented it with his Divine Blood which by the blows and stripes that they gave him was become pitch in the hands of the Jews setting up that Spear that pierc'd his side for a Mast stretching out that Linnen in which his most Sacred body was involved for its Sails recommending it to the Vigilance and Government of the Apostles and their Successors and finally for their greater incouragement to Lanch out into the Sea of this World he not only offer'd himself to become a Lanthorn to their feet but gave them a Motto worthy of such a Builder Et Portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam But though the Gates of Hell have had no power to destroy her they have been sufficient notwithstanding to give her great tryals that by her agitations and tempests in this world her victories and triumphs might be the more glorious in Heaven and that by those wrecks and persecutions the Church Militant and Triumphant might be distinguish'd The greatest Calamities this great Ship of Christianity has suffer'd have by the judgement of the most pious and devout persons proceeded from the investiture of the Supreme dignity in the persons of the Ecclesiasticks who being ambitious of advancing themselves one above another and being sensible upon the score of their own merits they cannot obtain the charges they pretend too they have betaken themselves to compass the end of their pretensions by imploring the recommendations of Secular Princes Which tend to mix Heaven and Earth together Rome which was built as it were to Lord it over all the Nations in the Universe and give an ample testimony and relation of thousands of wrecks the Church has suffer'd by the recourse the Ecclesiasticks have almost alwayes had to the Seculars and from hence it is that in these times there is a certain natural instinct and inclination in the minds of all Politicians to inform themselves distinctly of all particularities in the Court of Rome as if a man could not any way render himself more acceptable in his conversation than by his discourses of that And indeed the Pontifical dignity which is the most considerable the Majesty of so many Cardinals who are the Senators of the Christian Commonwealth the splendour of so many Bishops who receive all their aliment from the Popes do render it worthy to be numbred amongst the most famous Cities of the world and to be call'd the true Mother of Nations By this means the Popes being ingrandiz'd and rais'd to so eminent a degree as to be acknowledg'd above all other Monarchs whatsoever every one endeavours to inform himself of the quality of the great jurisdiction the Popes do at present enjoy in so much that the greatest part of the Writers now adayes do tire themselves out with relations of the Pontifical State From the mutations and evil events which have follow'd the Election of Popes I will not say in Rome but in all Christendome it may be clearly argued of what moment the said Election is seeing that for so many ages with her private interests and her publick she has oblig'd the principal Monarchies of the Universe to interpose with the whole power both of their Pen and their Sword In the Infancy of the Church there was nothing desir'd of Rome but Prayers and Orations and Preachings and Administration of the Sacraments because Rome expected nothing from the faithfull but the zeal of a good Conscience the safety of their Souls and to be frequent in Holy
Duties The first Pastors of the Church rejoyc'd to keep themselves at a distance from the Interests of Princes as fearing to defile the Innocent Purity of the Flock of Christ with the Diabolical pollutions of Secular policies But their Successors beginning to be curious and to pry into the most occult and private policies of Princes they would not suffer the Court of Rome to be medling there but gave themselves over to endeavour the introduction of their own Interests into the Cabinet of the Interests of the Popes For certain ages Rome was free from those intricacies that are familiar in Temporal States contenting it self to conduct the Flock of Christ to the Fold with her Pastoral Sheephook only I mean her Spiritual Arms but no sooner was she become greedy of Principality and Dominion but the Princes observing her Crosier to be chang'd into a Sword and the Book of the Gospel into an Epitomy of Politicks began also to imitate Rome seeing Rome following their Rules in Temporal Affairs For three hundred years and upwards the Primitive Church continu'd in a most Holy decorum without the least obstacle in the Election of her Popes they being then contented with the bare Title of Bishops of Rome The Elections were not made by the Interest of Princes or the Capriccio of Nephews as they are now but by a Holy Zeal in the Bowels of the Electors who us'd to meet sometimes in this place sometimes in that and many times in the Woods by reason of the cruelty of those Tyrants that envy'd the tranquility of the Christians They had in those dayes no secret nor private Votes because the inward designs of those Primitive Chistians were suitable and correspondent to their outward zeal and profession of good works The Deacons that is they who endued with greater Charity and Devotion serv'd the Church sometimes in collecting of Alms for the common necessities sometimes in distributing Relief to the necessities of the poor were admitted to the Election together with such Priests and Curats as were nearest to the City of Rome With what simplicity and integrity they proceeded to the Election of Popes in the Primitive times of the Church may be argued from what happen'd in the Vacancy of Pope Anthero who dyed according to Eusebius's calculation in the year 243. The Holy Fathers were met according to their usual custom to consult about a Successor and whilst they were discoursing of the virtues of this man and the abilities of another it happen'd that Fabiano Romano pass'd by near the place of their Assembly in order to the looking to some grounds of his which he did not disdain to cultivate many times with his own hands He was no sooner come over against the place wherein the Electors were met but a Pidgeon from a Neigbouring Dove-house alighting upon his Shoulder gave occasion to the Fathers to arise from their Seats at the first notice of it and esteeming it a Prodigye they proclaim'd him Pope unanimously every one being confident it was the intention of the Holy Ghost who was represented in that Dove Fabianus who thought of nothing less than to be chosen Pope was astonish'd at the business and not judging himself worthy of so great a Ministry he begg d upon his knees to be excus'd but his humility being overcome by the perswasion of the Electors he at â—ast embrac'd the Pastoral Cure of the Church in which after he had exercis'd it for the space of seven years with great advantage to the Christians he ended his dayes under the Tyranny of the barbarous Emperour Decius who at that time us'd great cruelty to the Christians constraining them from the City into the Woods which they were glad to make their houses of God seeing that the Emperour was pleas'd to make Cities places for wild Beasts and for Devils The Popedome was not ambition'd but avoided by the Ecclesiasticks because it commonly lost them their lives that exercis'd it He that found himself too weak and timerous to suffer Martyrdome renounc'd the Papacy and confess'd the imbecility of his nature and indeed who would ever have receiv'd much less have sought an office which brought no other advantages along with it than the persecution of Tyrants Now adayes what broyls what intrigues what differences are there at the creation of Popes where is he who would desire Votes to be made a Martyr For my part I dare affirm the Church would be as Holy in these times and perhaps more now we are as it were in the latter end of it than it was then in its beginning if the Popes were call'd to Poverty and not Riches to Martyrdom not Magnificence and to the care of the Church and not of Governments But whether do my thoughts transport me Let us return to our business and assert that the Church was Holy without Discord or Schism or Heresie to the dayes of San Silvester which were about the year 325. till that time the Popes having been Elected with tranquility and peace and no small satisfaction both to the Electors and Elected The Holiness of the Church I mean that Holiness that respects the Election of Popes began to cease under the Emperour Constantine because the Persecution of the Christians ceas'd Constantine suffer'd the Church to enjoy Peace that is of the body possibly but with greater torture to their minds for with the ease and wealth which he bestow'd upon the Ecclesiasticks with the conveniences of Houses and the Government of Cities which he assign'd to the Popes Charity began to grow cold Zeal to be weaken'd and Devotion to be lost and those Ecclesiasticks who formerly imploy'd their whole times in heaping up Penitencies and Fastings by those good works to purchase the Glory of Heaven began after that time to apply themselves to the acquisition of money to the begging of Abbeys and Bishopricks by those means to procure the glory of the world As soon then as Riches were introduc'd into the Church Schism and Heresie were introduc'd amongst the Clergy and Pride which began then to spread and worm it self into the hearts of those who were formerly meek and humble and sâ—câ— as shunn'd dignity and hid themselves from preferments insomuch as that Papacy which was avoided by every body as a thing that brought nothing but persecutions along with it began to be aspir'd too as soon as they perceiv'd their fear turn'd into security their flight into repose and their torments into happiness For if formerly by reason of the poverty of the Popedome they were subject to Tyrants they believ'd afterwards by virtue of their wealth to make Martyrs even of the Tyrants themselves No sooner did the Popes appear with their Miters of Gold and with their Scepters in their hands commanding the people but all of them design'd the destruction of the Secular Power to ingrandize the Pontifical Majesty to make themselves courted by the Vulgar and honour'd by the Great ones but the Emperours growing jealous of them began
to open their eyes and watch over their actions that they might not be taken at unawares endeavouring to defend that Jurisdiction which the Popes began by degrees to usurp with the Spiritual Arms of the Cross so that though they thought not before of the Interest of the Church they found themselves oblig'd afterwards to have an eye upon those of the Popes yet not so much out of any inclination of their own as because the Popes had the same designs upon them Notwithstanding all this whether it was out of respect to the memory of San Silvester or Constantine I know not it is sufficient that the Emperours suffer'd several years to pass after the death of those two persons without medling or concerning themselves at all in the Election of the Popes which was a great error in their Politicks For the succeeding Popes had opportunity in that time to advance their own Interests to the prejudice of the Empire and Emperors who taking no care to bridle and restrain the Interests of Rome contented themselves to live quietly at Constantinople and to send out their Orders to their Vicars and Prefects in Rome that they should endeavour with all possible industry to hinder the proceedings of the Popes but with express caution that they should by no means interpose in the Election of the Popes that being to be left to the Clergy and the people who by unanimous consent had had possession of the said Election for several years The introduction of the people into the Election of the Pope may be said to be casual there being no Pontifical Bull visible that gave them admission but it is to be suppos'd it fell out by reason of the Deacons who were admitted from the very time of the Apostles into the disposition of Ecclesiastical Charges and because as the Churches encreas'd and the number of the Faithfull was augmented so also was the number of the Deacons in the Assemblies in so much that by little and little they grew so numerous the said Deacons being not of the Order of the Clergy but of the Laity that they brought in the people and the Clergy having introduc'd the Deacons thought it not meet to turn out the people who possess'd the places of the Deacons At first the number of the Ecclesiastick Electors was much greater than the Deacons but the Deacons being become the people there became a greater inequality in the Electors and perhaps not without some displeasure to the Clergy who would willingly see the people excluded Whilst the Clergy were holy that is addicted to the service of God to the edification of their Neighbours to the augmentation of the Faithfull and the propagation of the Faith whilst they were retir'd from the Corruptions of the age and macerating their Flesh with Sackcloth and Fasting the people willingly joyn'd with them in the Election of the Popes because it belonging to the Clergy to give the first votes the people could not imagine those persons subject to Error who had no other aim than the service of God and therefore they willingly concurr'd delighting to confirm the opinion of the Clergy because they judg'd it holy and good But as soon as pride began to have place in the breasts of the Ecclesiasticks and that they pleas'd themselves with the enjoyments of Mundane advantages as soon as they began to deviate from the wayes of Heaven and the people observ'd their tendency to be too great towards the Earth they began likewise to press and insist upon their own opinion not trusting to the opinion of the Clergy because they saw them so deplorably void of all holiness From hence there succeeded infinite disputes and innumerable dissentions in so much that that action which was formerly sacred and solemn became prophane and scandalous by degrees they contending not only with words and invectives but with blows many times the people labouring to the utmost the division of the Clergy and the Clergy the dis-union of the people so that they form'd themselves into flying Squadrons both on the one side and the other Great was the scandal which happen'd in the year of our Lord 500. by reason of the differences in the Election of Simacus betwixt the Clergy and People each of them endeavouring to engage those that were without in so much that the Communalty of the City were forc'd to take Armes and with threats to oblige the Electors to a conclusion The Prefect or Imperial Vicar at Rome signify'd in the behalf of the Emperor that if they did not agree his Master would be constrain'd to bring an Army to Rome to the prejudice of the whole City with which the Electors being affrightned they agreed in the Election of Simacus For certain years after this they chose their Popes with little or no controversie till that in the year 531. they began to relapse into their former disputes obliging the City to take Armes the second time whose threatnings prevail'd to put an end to that Election also by their declaring Boniface the second Pope which said Boniface being an Assertor of the interest of the Clergy as soon as he was assum'd to the Papacy he endeavour'd to apply a remedy to those scandals and to give the greatest share to the Clergy And Virgilius his successor in the Papacy observing things to run clearly with them establish'd a Decree that the Election of the Popes should remain absolutely in the hands of the Clergy for the future to the exclusion of the people which Decree gave so great dissatisfaction to the Romans that they watch'd for an opportunity to revenge it About this time Attila who was call'd Flagellum Dei with great triumph to the Goths whose King he was over-run all Italy and with great cruelty and slaughter threatned the total destruction of Rome Pelagius the Pope who succeeded Virgilius not thinking it safe in such a conjuncture to have a discontented people and Tyrant upon his shoulders at one time to gain the favour both of the one and the other publish'd a Bull forbidding the Clergies Election of the Pope without the consent both of the People and Emperor and so it came to pass that they introduc'd into the Elections the Ambassadors of the Emperor and the People in the same numbers as before The Emperor and People were very well pleas'd with it and took possession of their Priviledges in the next vacancy of the Chair all of them together electing John the 3d. But in the year 583. Rome being besieg'd the Clergy and the People chose Pelagius the second Pope without giving any share or participation to the Emperor who vow'd revenge as soon as he had the news But the new Pope to pacifie his choller dispatch'd an Ambassador to make his excuse and to assure him for the future there should be no Election made without his consent to which end he confirm'd the Bull of Pelagius the first which Bull and confirmation continued in force successively till the year
came to be 12. those of the first Scrutiny which was made divided their Votes in 10. Cardinals and therefore that Scrutiny being void another was made the next day in which Cardinal Prosper Colonna had 10. voices and Cardinal Firmano 8. This gave some small addition to the opinion people had of Colonna many believing him certainly to be Pope especially when they saw he wanted but two voices The next day they came to a third Scrutiny and the 8. voices were divided they having propos'd some persons without the Conclave yet the 10. voices for Colonna were entire From whence Cardinal Firmano who defended Colonna's party taking courage he began to cry out Let us lose no more time in vain in these contests seeing the Church is so great a sufferer by them let us open our eyes I beseech you which are seal'd up as it were by particular passion and look upon the evils impending Behold Rome is divided into two factions the French County declar'd our Enemy the Schism of Amadeo Duke of Savoy is grown stronger by our differences the King of Aragon threatens us with his Armies and why then do we lose time why do we not resist these evils by giving a Pastor to the Spouse of Christ why do we not eâ—â—ct Cardinal Prosper Colonna who wants but two voices and is a person qualify'd with virtue for so honourable a charge The Cardinal Bolognese being moved by these perswasions rose up to go to Colonna and give him his voice which Cardinal Tarentino observing pluck'd him by the slâ—eve and said Stay a while not in such hast a business of this importance requires time and maturity of counsel we are now deliberating about the Election of Gods Vice-gerent upon Earth a Shepherd for the whole Flock of Christ and a Governour of the Universe and shall we precipitate in this manner Cardinal Aquilegiense reply'd Your words Cardinal Tarentino do import as if you would make a Pope oâ— your own and wrest the Papacy out of the hands of Colonna Explain your self then who is it you would have Pope Bolognese reply'd Tarentino and I the same said Aquiligiense Cardinal San Sixâ—o went towards the Cardinal Bolognese and said Thomas I make you Pope it is appointed this day that we celebrate the Vigils of Saint Thomas upon which words there was a common cry of all the Cardinals We will have no other Pope but Thomas Sarzana da Luna Bishop of Bologna who was nam'd by San Sixtus and so with a general acclamation he was made Pope This Cardinal was so modest that in the presence of them all he declar'd himself unworthy of so great a charge beseeching the Cardinals that they would fix their eyes upon some body that might be more able to do the Church service than he to which Cardinal Tarentino reply'd that he ought not to withstand the pleasure of the Holy Ghost who had directed his Election he submitted thereupon to the will of the Lord and took upon him the name of Nicholas every one admiring to see him Pope who never aim'd at it at all and those remain Cardinals who fancy'd they were already created It is scarce credible with how much zeal this Pope began his Pastoral Cure he spent the greatest part of the night in ruminating and considering of a way to extinguish the Schism of the Anti-pope to which he by several reiterated instances press'd the Emperor Frederick who being willing likewise to do any thing for the satisfaction of his Holiness forc'd Felix to renounce the Papacy which he did in the year of our Lord 1449. about two years after Nicholas was created however Nicholas us'd Amadeo with this courtesie that he made him Cardinal and Legate of Germany that he might not be destitute of Dignity in regard of the Nobility of his Family which was reckon'd amongst the principal of Europe as it is esteem'd at this present For the abolishment of this Schism and of so pleasing an agreement the people and Clergy all Italy through made no small expression of their joy shewing their thankfulness with Bone fires and Processions especially in Rome This deposal of Felix was very displeasing to the poor of Germany for he was certainly one of the most charitable persons living Being one day desir'd by certain Ambassadors to shew them his Hounds he reply'd that they should not fail to see them the next day the time and the Ambassadors being come the good Felix who was then Don Amadeo shew'd them a multitude of poor Beggars all of them set down at his Table telling them Behold these are my Hounds which I daily feed and do hope by following them to be carry'd to glory everlasting many Princes of these dayes would have need of such an example He liv'd Anti-pope nine years although he was very old having seen his Grand-sons marry with the Daughters of Kings After his renuntiation he liv'd but a few months and dyed in Ripalta though others suppose in Lusana where it is believed he was buried because he has a fine Tomb of excellent Marble there at this day Felix his Schism being compos'd in this manner and the Cardinals elected by him confirm'd by Nicholas they all embrac'd one another obliging themselves both the Cardinals created by Nicholas and they who were created by Felix for the future to a Religious concord and to look nearer into the duties of their Dignity and the inconvenience the Church had receiv'd by their differences and disputes swearing to one another after a true resentment of what was past a firm resolution of moderating their private passions in the Conclaves and not to expose the honour and quiet of the Church any more They promis'd moreover that they would not only endeavour to put the Popedom in the time of the vacancy of the See into the hands of a deserving person and one capable of exercising an Office of that Grandeur but that they would hasten the finishing of the Conclave to the utmost of their power that the people might not have time to embarque themselves in any mischievous design and that the Princes might not be oblig'd to put their hands to the Work because they being troubled to see the dis-union amongst the Ecclesiasticks encrease were uniting themselves to give a remedy to the Schism After the death of Nicholas the 5th which happen'd in the year 1455. as it were with extreme grief which he conceived to see the City of Constantinople fall into the hands of the Enemies of the Gospel it was apparent that all which the Cardinals had promis'd was with their mouths only and not with their hearts for the Cardinals being enter'd in the usual form though with a small number but of 28. into the Conclave they began immediately to divide not as Brothers but Enemies making four factions that the election of the Pope might be sure to be difficult eleven of them pretending to the Papacy themselves and yet there were but 15 for any one so
that by this means there were two scrutinies ineffectual after this there began strong practices in the behalf of Cardinal Bessarione of Constantinople a Grecian who was one of the chief which had oppos'd themselves against the Latine Church he had disputed much against Purgatory unleaven'd bread and against the very person of the Holy Ghost who he maintain'd proceeded from the Father alone and not from the Father and Son Cardinal Bettone Archbishop of Avignon being advic'd of this and discovering the two thirds of the Cardinals declar'd in the design he fail'd not to use his utmost endeavour to frustrate that Enterprise and with great zeal he exprest himself in words like these Most illustrious Lords what shall we make a Pope upon a present appearance only without reflection on what is past or what 's to come shall we prefer a Grecian to the Latine Church and establish a Neophite in the highest place of the Vatican who is it that can assure us his conversion is true heterodox opinions in matters of Religion though renounc'd and alter'd with the tongue do yet leave a muddiness and disturbance upon the heart shall we give the Keys of Heaven to him who for so many years and with so many arguments deny'd there was a Purgatory shall we make him head of the Catholick Church who oppos'd it with so much audacity Is it possible our Church of Rome should be so poor and indigent that there cannot be one person found out who was born in her bosom and is worthy of the Government of the Flock of Christ what will the rest of the Nations say to see us goe up and down begging our Popes of this Country and of that Rouze up your zeal most noble Companions and permit not a thing so scandalous in the Church of Christ this I am sure of he which is a friend to Christianity will not give his voice for such a Pope These words being spoken with great energy had such an effect upon the hearts of the Cardinals that they began to change their designs and place them upon Cardinal Alphonso Borgia of the City of Valenza in Spain a person of great experience in Politick affairs and of maturity in respect of his age The usual scrutiny being made the said Cardinal was chosen Pope and took the name of Calisto the 3d. verifying the Prediction of Beato Vincenzo who upon his death-bed prognosticated that not long after his death a Countryman of his of Valenza should succeed in the Papacy Calisto lived three years and died the sixth of August 1458. and on the 20th of the same month Cardinal Aeneas Piccolomini of Siena was created Pope by 18 Cardinals which were present in that Conclave in which there were but two Competitors for the Papacy viz. Cardinal Rotomagensis and Aeneas aforesaid so that for the four dayes time in which it was debated in the Conclave they had no other difficulty but to make choice either of the one or the other of these two because Pietro Barbo and the Cardinal of Pavia who likewise made some pretensions were excluded at the first But that which was most curious and worthy to be remembred was to see each of these two persons driving on his own promotion magnifying his own virtues and debasing the qualifications of his adversary Rotomagensis in this manner went from one Cardinal to another and said What have you to doe with Aeneas what reason is it that moves you to think him worthy of the Papacy what passion is it that blinds you so as to confer an Office of that Majesty and importance upon a Gouâ—y Beggar how can he that is poor and infirm himself relieve or support the Church which is as weak as infirm and as poor as he Where is his learning where is his knowledge will you make him a Pope because he is a Poet It is not long since he came out of Germany and who can assure you but he may have thoughts of transferring the See into Germany for my part I should not have ambition'd it if I had not seen a person stand for it of much weaker parts than I am I am the antienter Cardinal of the two for it is scarce two years since he was made a Cardinal and in my Conscience there is none of you but knows I have Learning and Parts enough to govern the Church of Christ very well to the Government of which learning and parts are absolutely necessary Besides all this I am of Royal Extraction and have friends faculties and wealth wherewithall to accommodate and alleviate the necessities of the Church and last of all you your selves will have advantage by my Election by reason of the many Benefices I hold which upon my renuntiation will be divided amongst you Thr Cardinal of Avignon an audacious rash and avaricious person was there in favour of Cardinal William Rotomagensis whose interest he pursu'd with all imaginable zeal not so much as he was a Frenchman as because upon his promotion he pretended the Church of the said William his Pallace and Chancery He assembled therefore several Cardinals in a House of Office as in a private and secret place and began with many fair promises to inveigle them into the Net and taking an Oath of each of them he agreed with them about the way Rotomagensis was to be chosen The business was held as good as done nor was there any thing expected but day to meet in the chapel about the Scrutiny Cardinal of Bologna seeing things at this pass went to Cardinal Aeneas after midnight and spake thus to him I am come to bring you news that the Pope is made that several Cardinals having met privately in the necessary house they have determin'd among themselves to make Rotomagensis Pope as will follow as soon as a is day For my part I am resolved to have a care of coming again into the noose having experimented already how inconvenient it is to have a Pope to ones Enemy and this I can say from Calisto the 3ds kindness who never look't upon me with a good eye for having spoke against his Election My advice is therefore that you put your own things in order that you get up immediately out of your bed and tender your service to Rotomagensis as you desire not to have him your Enemy Aeneas lost not his courage at the tydings but animating himself ratheâ— the more he reply'd Avoid Satan seeing you come hither â—ut to give that devilish counsel to me which you have taken your self Keep therefore such Councels to your self my conscience does not serve me to choose a person who to my knowledge is not only not 〈…〉 but the most unworthy of all God keep me from falling into so great a crime and if â—thers shall choose him let it lye upon them to give an accompt of it at the latter day I know well enough how inconvenient it is not to have the Pope to be ones friend but yet â—iâ—
much better to have the Pope than God Almighty to ones enemy He will not take away my life sure because I gave him not my Vote I believe he will lessen my diet deâ—y me my Pensions banish me his presence and never consider me in my distresses Why in Poverty I have been hardned I have liv'd in poverty till now and in poverty I will die He will not take away my Muses who are my greatest refreshment In short I trust in God for the rest who will never suffer the Church his Spouse to fall into the hands of so impure and lascivious a person The goodness of God will not endure that Vatican to be turn'd into a Den of Thieves and an infamous receptacle of Harlots which has hitherto been the habitation of so many holy and religious Popes If the Holy Ghost makes the Pope he will not be the man if the Devil makes him let him give his consent that has a mind to t. The power of the Conspirators will vanish the design being laid in so sordid a place In the morning by the Grace of God it will be seen whether the Pope be made by the combination of men or the inspiration of Heaven and if you be a good Christian as well as a zealous Cardinal you will not give your vote for one who is a perfect member â—f the Devil In the morning early Aeneas went to Cardinal Roderigo a Spaniard and one of the Conspirators for Rotomagensis who had receiv'd a promise in writing from the said Rotomagensis and the Cardinal Avignon that the Chancellorship should not be taken from him He excus'd himself to Aeneas that he had concurr'd because he did certainly believe he would be chosen and he was unwilling to hang off and lose his Chancellorship But Aeneas return'd him this answer And will you then sell your Vote and by the sin of Simony run your self into the displeasure of God do you take so little care then to obtrude a youth upon the Vatican and one that is an Enemy to your Nation Oh blindness Oh folly will you give credit to the words of a person of no credit know that the Chancellorship which is promis'd so faithfully to you is promis'd likewise and confirm'd to the Cardinal of Avignon so that for you there will be nothing left but the bare policy for it can never be that a French Pope will do more for a Spaniard than for one of his own Nation But if he should give you the Chancellorship which never will be the worm of Conscience will be still gnawing at your heart as oft as you remember that you concurr'd to the giving such a Vicar to the Church of Christ In short if you will not have an eye to the Christian Religion to the interests of the Church nor to the honour of Christ have at least some care and compassion for your own reputation Such was the contumacy and indignation of Roderigo Borgia that he gave him not a word so Aeneas departed to find out the Cardinal of Pavia who was one of the Conspirators likewise and having found him he accosted him in this manner I am inform'd of your resolution to choose Rotomagensis Pope which I could never have believ'd as esteeming you another person than it seems you are You ought to be asham'd to degenerate so much from Cardinal Brando your Vnkle who with so much labour and sweat tyr'd himself out to transfer the Pontifical Court from Germany to Rome and you that are his Nephew would transport it from Italy into France it must necessarily be believ'd that Rotomagensis will never give the Italians the precedence before the French and you that are an Italian will confederate sooner with France than your own Country what a sad thing Italy will be without a Pope what light can we see without that light and have you the heart to be instrumental with your authority and counsel to deprive us of the greatness and splendor of such a Guide if he should stay still in Italy what a shame would it be to see her enslaved to a Foreign Lord must Italy therefore who is the Queen of all other Nations beg her Monarchs from amongst them can you have the heart to see your self a slave to the French when it is in your power to make the French obedient to our Nation is it not enough that you have had experience of the Catalonians but that you must try the French too who perhaps when you think least of it will make himself Master both of Sicily and all the Cities and Fortresses belonging to the Church and the rather the example of Calisto being so fresh who gave his Countrymen the Catalonians his utmost assistance to get possession of all Cardinal Pavia reply'd but with a very low voice that he did not believe the French had any thoughts against the profit and advantage of the Church they having given with so much generosity the greatest part of the Provinces it possess'd and they would not probably take that away which they had given so lately to which Aeneas reply'd thus But suppose that should be ought it not to stir up your heart against Rotomagensis to consider the infamy of his manners are you not asham'd to choose a man Pope given to lasciviousness and of so unconstant a mind do you not abhor to prepare such a Bridegroom for the Spouse of Christ and to recommend the innocent Flock of Christ to the tuition of a ravenous Woolf where is your justice where is your conscience where is your zeal to God where is your prudence how are you so much alter'd from your self you have told me many times you would sooner dye and endure Martyrdom than give your Voice for Rotomagensis knowing the wickedness of his nature and yet now you make him Pope in despight of your knowledge what is the reason of so great a changâ— is he in the twinkling of an eye become an Angel of a Devil or are you become a Devil of an Angel Pavia was astonish'd at these words and wept I know not whether for sorrow or disdain but fetching a deep sigh he reply'd 'T is true indeed Aeneas all that you say but I have past my word to make Rotomagensis Pope and if I do it not I shall be held infamous and a Traitor To which Aeneas answered As far as I see things are reduc'd into such a state that which way soever you turn you you cannot scape the blemish of a Traitor it is in your power yet to choose whether you will betray Italy and your Country and be true to Rotomagensis or betray him and be faithful to your Country and Italy Cardinal Pavia was overcome by these words and took a resolution to betray Rotomagensis as the lesser evil of the two and therefore meeting with Cardinal Pietro di Santa Maria Nova and other Italian Cardinals in the Cardinal of Genoa's Chamber they altogether began to contrive the
absolutely at least they precede the interests of God and his Church and this I am sure but few Cardinals with a good Conscience can deny This way of proceeding so blindly in the Elections of the Pope has prevail'd for above three hundred years but for an Age past it is so usual and rooted that it seems a necessary virtue Now the Cardinals who are ingag'd both to the Princes and the Church do in the Elections of the Popes stand as it were in a Precipice and are in danger of running themselves upon Scylla to avoid Charibdis or upon Charibdis to avoid Scylla and this is it that obliges the Cardinals many times to endure imprisonment in the Conclave several dayes together And to render the Election of the Pope more tedious and pernicious that is more adhaesive to the world there is another thing introduc'd likewise into the Conclave within this last Age and that is the faction of the Nephews which prevails dayly and overgrows both the factions of Spain of France and all the Princes in Christendome The faction of the Nephews was the cause as we shall show in its proper place that after the death of Vrban and Innocent the Cardinals remain'd several weeks and months shut up in the Conclave without being able to agree the interest of the Nephews over-powring the intreest of the Crowns which ought to have been the greater of the two And now behold the liberty of the Cardinals inslav'd to the Tyranny of the Nephews the Ambition of the Nephews Lording it over the Priviledges of the Church Is it necessary then that young men be preferr'd before old that Ganimed be ador'd before Jupiter Is it reasonable to exclude those who can say and speak truth Quadraginta annis proximus fui generationi huic and to admit them who but begin to say the Introibo in domum tuum Domine Must it be then that if in the Sacred Colledge there be found one Cardinal worthy of the Papacy must it be I say that he must stand depriv'd and uncapable because he was not created by the last Pope In this manner things are now carry'd because they will have it so but doubtless it ought to be otherwise At present and for a hundred years past the vote of the Cardinals is not free the last takes place of the first and the first are forc'd to give place to the last The Hereticks laugh and the Catholicks laugh and some of those Romans who are neither Catholicks nor Hereticks make Pasquins upon the subject a subject indeed too scandalous and reproachfull to the whole Colledge but especially to those Cardinals who laying aside their own liberties and the liberty of the Church adhere so close to the interest of the Nephews manifesting thereby that it was not their merit advanc'd them to the Cardinalitial Dignity but their Devotion to the Nephews and pronouncing themselves Cardinals of the Nipotisme rather than of the Holy Church seeing they do not serve the Church but the Nipotisme Some few dayes past I had an accidental occasion of discoursing with a certain Prelate or Abbot of Rome who amongst variety of other things relating to the interests of the Court of Rome happen'd in the process of his discourse to declare that he had been Conclavist to a Cardinal in the last Conclave of Chigi I out of my natural curiosity and in order to my History which I was then a compiling giving thanks to Heaven for so propitious an opportunity beseech'd the Abbot very earnestly that he would inform me of some particulars touching the interests of the Princes in the Election of the Popes The Abbot fetch'd a sigh at my request and gave me this answer Sir in the Election of the Pope the least thing that prevails is the interest of the Princes and especially of the Crowns if you knew at what rate things are carry'd in the Conclave you 'd bless your self There is not a word of any thing but the Nephews and the interests of the Crowns are us'd but as a meer shadow to the interest of the Nipotisme for my part I believe the Princes weary to see the interests of the Nephews preferr'd to theirs in a matter of that consequence will leave Rome to the Cardinals and the Cardinals in Rome who finding themselves depriv'd of the riches the Princes give them to defend their interest will every one cry out without doubt Quid faciam miser quia Dominus meus aufert a me villicationem And this I am sure of that if ever the Princes shall resolve to take that course their interests in the Conclave will be greater than they are now which if not nothing at all are at least so little they know not where to find them themselves Certainly if things be consider'd impartially it will be found that the Papacy is not Elective as it seems in appearance but Hereditary to the Nephews for as much as the Nephews of the deceas'd Pope are they which govern all in the Conclave and will have it one way or other in spight of all those who endeavour to oppose them But because a business of such importance desires better proofs I shall proceed according to the order of Elections and by experience of the successes of the Conclaves since Paul the third render the Reader so well satisfy'd and inform'd that he may himself confess the Papacy is now become Hereditary to the Nipotism of Rome Paul the third pass'd from this to a better life on the 10th of November 1549. and his obâ—equies being perform'd the Lord Cardinals to the number of 47. enter'd into the Conclave they were divided into three factions the first for France govern'd by the Cardinal Guise the second for the Emperor manag'd by the Cardinal of Trent and the third of the Creatures of Paul conducted by Cardinal Farnese a young man but as well vers'd and experienc'd in Politick affairs as was to be expected from his age and something better Amongst the Cardinals of the faction of Farnese there were certain others promoted in the time of Paul and which is more considerable they were able men and mature both in judgement and age by which means this faction being the greatest of the three was courted and caress'd by both the other At the beginning of the Conclave the reputation of the Cardinal Farnese began to be very great all people acknowledging it impossible to put an end to the Conclave without his concurrence so that each of the two factions took what pains they could to draw him to their side but because to oblige his Creatures the more to him he had declar'd to do nothing but by the deliberation and consent of all his aforesaid Creatures together Farnese being weary of the importunities of the Imperialists and the French reâ—olv'd before he engag'd himself to consuit certain of his Creatures more judicious than the rest who fail'd not to advise him with great reason and solidity Some of them declar'd
in little Billets into a Vaze and in another he hath as many Chartels put signed with the Alphabetical Letters fastned as I have said upon the Chambers and drawing aâ— a venture the the names of the Cardinals one by one he draws likewise the letters for every one and then distributes them according to their Lots and the Letter of the Cardinal to whose share it falls is fixt upon the Chamber At this Lottery there are always present some of the Cardinals servants who immediately furnish and hang the same for their Masters with Cloth so as they resemble a plain Tent. They furnish them with Beds and a Table carrying in several Utensils for the Table and other necessaries The Rafters are cover'd with Linnen or the fairest Wollen-cloath with Curtains of the same hanging down the sides of what colour they please so that the Cardinals created by the last Pope have Green and the rest Purple but they have chang'd the colours sometimes and us'd red and white During the said nine days the Cardinals do constantly meet either at the Chamberlains house or in the Palace to deliberate on such provisions as are necessary for the good government of the State Ecclesiastick They write Letters to the Presidents of Provinces and to the absolute Governours using the same titles of Son and Brother as the Pope does They do confirm and order the guard of the first gate of the Pallace to their Swisses the second which is the gate of the Inner Court to the Caporioni or Conservators of Rome which are indeed the chief of the Wards of the City The third guards consist of the Ambassadors of Princes and other persons of great worth but they must not be Ecclesiasticks At the fourth gate which is the nearest to the Conclave there are eight or ten Prelates of the highest condition and quality These guards do not attend unless it be the Swisses but when the Cardinals are enter'd into the Conclave Almes are given for the soul of the Pope choice is made of the Conclavists which are to enter with them after that every Cardinal proposes him which he desires to have with him and then the Chamberlain proposes such others as are usually wont to be there which are chosen by private votes by the whole Colledge except the Vestry-keeper and the Master of the Ceremonies and then in one of the ten dayes the Chamberlain gives an Oath of fidelity to all that are so Elected in the presence of the Colledge There are three Cardinals deputed every day to superintend all the Expences that are made as wellin the conclave and funeral as in other things which is plac'd upon the account of the Apostolick-chamber but with observation of the Bull of Pius the 4th which prohibites the expence in Rome to exceed ten thousand crowns And lastly to appoint when they must enter into the Conclave that is whether in the Morning or after Vespers on the eleventh day The eleventh day after the death of the Pope in the morning every Cardinal exhorts his Family to live piously and serve God Those which can do say Mass and then all of them at the hour appointed repair to Saint Peters Church where upon which Altar the Dean pleases he sings the Mass of the Holy Ghost and those Cardinals who have not celebrated already do communicate there Mass being ended a Prelate is appointed by the Chamberlain in an Oration to admonish the Fathers of their duties and the importance of the affair they are going about After this is over according to the time appointed for going into the Conclave Mass being said the Master of the Ceremonies to the Pope taking the Papal Cross in his hand he goes towards the Conclave The Cardinals servants go before after them the singing men singing the Hymn Veni Creator Spiritus c. in the last place are the President Cardinals and the Cardinal Bishops in the second place the Priests in the third the Deacons all habited in Purple and after them the other Prelates and Clergy of the Court. As soon as they are enter'd the Conclave the Dean of the Colledge before the Altar in the Chapel of Saint Nicholas says the Prayer Deus qui Corda invocating the Holy Ghost But if their entrance be iâ— Vespers time they meet in Saint Peters and go in Procession as is said moving according to the command of the Chamberlain The Dean having done his Prayer the Chamberlain in the presence of all people and at the request of the Notary before the said Altar gives an Oath upon the Holy Evangelist to every one of the Deputies at the second and third gates that is to the Roman Barons and the Ambassadors of Princes obliging them to be diligent and faithful to the Apostolick Pallace and the sacred Conclave and that they shall not permit the Cardinals to be aggrieved by any body contrary to the Pontifical Bulls The Deputies at the fourth Gate of the Sacred Conclave do swear the same and more viz. that they shall not suffer any body to come near the said Gate nor to speak with any one within nor to write or receive Letters without express leave from the Colledge that they shall search with all diligence what meat and provision is carry'd in that there be no Letters or advice convey'd therein that they shall take care their Wine and their Water be given in Glasses to prevent any juggling that way Every one shall depart the Conclave but the Cardinals and such as shall be chosen which are as follow The Vestry-keeper to the Pope with a Coadjutor two Masters of the Ceremonies a religious Regular for Confessor a Chyrurgeon two Physicians and an Apothecary with two Servants eight or nine persons for the service of the whole Conclave and none of them to be of the Family of any of the Cardinals Every Cardinal may have two Servants of his own and if sick three provided it be with the approbation of the Colledge but they ought to have been with each Cardinal one year they must be no Merchants no Ministers of Princes none of their own Brothers or Nephews neither are they to have any temporal Jurisdiction There shall be a Governour of the Conclave a Prelate of worth and of parts who shall take care that things be carried within as they ought to be and that the Cardinaals want nothing that is convenient and all these particulars were ordain'd by Pius the 4th All those being departed which are not allow'd to remain in the Conclave the persons deputed shall be plac'd at the second and third Gates and the fourth which belongs properly to the Conclave shall be lock'd with four Keys and so remain fortifi'd with four locks having in the middle a little VVindow or a VVheel as the Chamberlain pleaseth Two of the Keys are kept without one for the Gate another for the Window and the other two within for the same those within are in the keeping of the Master of the Ceremonies
infested successively with the Plague Famine Inundations Wars and the disbursement of great sums of Moneys in assistance of the Emperor and Venetian against the Turk which had totally exhausted the Apostolical Treasury On the 23th the Sacred Colledge met in the Cathedral of Saint Peter to celebrate the first Obsequies of the deceas'd Pope after this in the Vestry of the said Church they held the first Congregation of State for the well governing of the Ecclesiastick Republique in which all Offices were renounc'd and afterwards confirm'd as particularly the charge of General of the Holy Church to Don Mario to prevent dissentions and tumults of the people during the vacancy of the See Monsignor Borromei was confirm'd Governour of Rome likewise and with much more satisfaction to the people in respect of the prudence and justice wherewith he hath alwayes executed his Office as a Gentleman and as a Prelate of great merit and judgement And because it was reported the Conclave should be held not in the Palace of the Vatican by the Cathedral of Saint Peter but in the Palace Quirinal in the middle of Rome where his Holiness dyed though not for that consideration but in regard the Vatican was suppos'd to have an ill air and the dust was great by reason of the continual building of the Portico's this point being propos'd in the said first Congregation and the Scrutiny being made there were only 14. Votes for the Vatican and all the other about 40. there being above 50. present for the Quirinal But Cardinal Barbarino having made a couragious Speech as he was Dean remonstrating in several heads the convenience of holding the Conclave in the Vatican for its vicinity to the Church of Saint Peter for its immence capacity as containing no less than 5500 several Rooms great and small with 13000 Doors and Windows with large and pleasant Courts Gardens and Fountains his opinion prevail'd to have a new Scrutiny upon which three Cardinals were deputed to take some Architects along with them and survey the streightness and incommodities of the Quirinal which order was immediately observ'd the Architects reporting that besides the insufferable streightness of the Quirinal it would cost 5000 Crowns more to be there than in the Vatican by which means they discredited a Pamphlet written and prepar'd during the distemper of the Pope by Cardinal Pallavicino and publish'd after his death to induce the Cardinals to hold the Conclave in the Quirinal Palace and not in the Vatican In the Congregations which follow'd dayly in the aforesaid Vestry there was notice taken of a great silence and modesty in Cardinal Chigi to the admiration of such as did not know he was advis'd to it by reason that he was of a nature to be easily perplext yet for all this he gave them boldly to understand that he and his faction would never be perswaded from their own creatures The Ambassadors of France and Venice in the second Congregation made their usual Orations as formularies in the names of that King and Republique intreating the most eminent Cardinals to create some most worthy person for the universal benefit of the Church offering any aid or assistance for the security of the Colledge in the mean time The like Office was perform'd the Thursday following by the Catholick Ambassador who appeared likewise with a considerable train In one of the said Congregations Monsignor Casanate was chosen Governour of the Conclave who was Secretary to the Congregation de propaganda fide It was decree'd likewise that no Cardinal for the future do admit any person to sit by his side in the Coach though honour'd with the Prelacy or any other charge as also that no Cardinal shall stop his Coach to any body Except the Ambassadors of Crowns only During the 9 days devoted to the Obsequies the Cardinais visited one another incessantly after dinner for in the morning they were hindred by the Congregations but he Ambassadors of France and Spain visited them much more to confirm the several practices which were agreed upon whilst the Pope was alive and to incourage the Cardinals to stand firm to their promises About this time there were several discourses and Pamphlets publish'd concerning the Papable persons written according to the passion or affection of the Author with obloquy or commendation of the same persons who are prostituted as a man may say to the liberty of so many tongues By reason of the alienation shew'd by the Pope from the French to the very end of his days upon occasion of the Extravagance of the Corsi Souldiers which happen'd with so much scandal to Christendom and so much disturbance to Rome in the time of his Papacy towards the Duke of Crequy Ambassador from the Crown of France the memory of the revenge or satisfaction of his most Christian Majesty remaining too fresh in the Pyramede erected in Rome in the very Quarter of the Corsi Souldiers It was suppos'd that Cardinal Chigi to pacifie in some measure and appease the King of France and to take away all umbrage of malevolence out of his mind would have been ready to endeavour by all fair means to promote the satisfaction of the said King by concurring with his Creatures in some such person as his Majesty should approve For several days reflection was made upon this point and no small hopes though ambiguous given to the French who believ'd themselves sure because Farnese was the man they pitch'd upon who being a Creature of Chigi's it seem'd natural for him to agree to a Creature of his own and at the same time to gratifie France who would not be wanting in testimonies of affection to them and this was one of the inducements that prevail'd with Farnese to imbarque himself in the business and to court several of the Spanish Cardinals and of the Squadrone volante to make up his compleat number of Votes and indeed he reckon'd upon more than 20 of Chigi's Creatures of his side for the reasons abovesaid about eight or ten of the French about 14 others of his friends of the Spanish Faction and a party in the flying Squadron which promis'd to serve him in so much that being confident in all these he thought the Papacy as certainly in his house as I believe the Pen is in my Hand and perhaps he try'd in his Chamber to make Papal Crosses of benediction In the mean time Cardinal Chigi having consider'd of his affairs better he believ'd it would be an occasion of an eternal prejudice and disgust to the Spaniard and therefore he thought best to tack about as nimbly as he could least he should disturb or interrupt his hopes of being made Protector of the Crown of Spain which he thought as surely in his hands as Farnese did the Papacy but they at last understood better the subtlety of the Courts both in Spain and Rome Chigi believ'd that the Pope his Unkle had recommended him to the King of Spain by the mediation of his
Ambassador to whom he gave audience eight days before his death upon which he resolv'd to adhere to the Spanish Faction as hoping thereby to obtain the Protection of the Church of Spain which was then vacant by the death of Cardinal di Medici it being a Protection of great honour and advantage But the general opinion was that it was to be reserv'd for a new Cardinal of the house of Medici which would be promoted by the next Pope upon which score it was concluded by every body that Cardinal Chigi being in fear of the French and in hopes of the Spaniard was to temporize so that upon what person soever the Papacy fell he was to remain in the favour and protection of one of the two Crowns After the usual Exsequies were perform'd by the Cardinals and a Funeral Oration recited on Thursday morning the second of June the Cardinals being assembl'd in the Church of Saint Peter having sung the Mass of the Holy Ghost and recited an exhortatory Prayer for the Election of a Religious Pope they march'd in Procession towards the Conclave the singing men before them singing veni Creator Spiritus which was much more inlarg'd than formerly not only because they made use of the Lodge of Benediction but because they had furnish'd some of their Cells very neatly with Silk leaving the top open to the Sky which they could open and shut with Cords to receive the benefit of the Air as the Season requir'd The whole day long free entrance was allow'd to every body especially to the Ambassadors of Crowns who visited all the Cardinals one by one all the Princes and Prelats of the Court and an infinite number of others performing the same Complements each of them as his affection inclin'd him Farnese and Rospigliosi were the most regarded by the people and by the generality of the Prelats many of which began to acknowledge them as Popes Never was there so great a number of Cardinals seen in any Conclave before above seventy entring in at the same time viz. Francisco Barbarino Ginetti Harrach Anthonio Barbarino Pallotta Brancaccio Carpegna Durazzo Gabrielli Orsini Este Facchinetti Grimaldi Rossetti Romanini all of them creatures of Vrban the 8th Cibo Sforza Odescalco Raggi Maldachini Gondi Homodei Ottoboni Imperiale Borromei Hassia Carlo Barbarino Spada Albici Aquaviva Pio Gualtieri Azzolini creatures of Innocent the 10th Chigi Rospigliosi Bonvisi Elci Farnese Bichi Vechiarelli Franzoni Vidoni Barbarigo Mancini Boncompagni Bonelli Piccolomini Caraffa Celsi Savelli Litta Corsini Paluzzi Rasponi Conti Nini Roberti Spinola Caraccioli Delfini Vandomo created by Alexander the 7th The Cardinals Aragon and Moncada were in Spain and thought it not convenient to undertake such a journey when the weather was so hot besides Aragon could not leave that Court being chief Minister there The new Cardinal Visconte sent word likewise that he could not come because there was never an Apostolical Nuntio there and that Court would not admit his Auditor either as Nuntio or Envoy upon which the Spanish Ambassador dispatch'd an express to hasten his coming desiring the Ministers of Spain to adjust the difference and to receive the Auditor as an Envoy Almost at the same time the Cardinal of Salsburg writ word he could not be present at that Conclave neither in regard of the Imperial Dyet which he could not possibly leave this advice was not over welcome to the ears of the Catholick Ambassador who sent a Courier on purpose to solicite the Emperour that he would be pleas'd to dismiss him But all this importunity had no other effect than to make the French believe the Spanish Faction were too timerous and by consequence weak Bandinelli and Pallavicino were absent and so as never to be present afterwards for being very sick and infirm they dyed within three or four dayes leaving the Conclave possest either with a spirit of contradiction or folly Pallavicino dy'd so poor there was not enough found in his house to pay the charge of his Funeral but was forc'd to be beholding to the affection of Chigi even after his death whose Eminence sent a 1000 Crowns to effect it There were two other Cardinals likewise who were absent Ludovisio and Donghi both of them indispos'd and forc'd to stay away to perfect their Cure However it is sufficient that the two thirds of the votes which were necessary for the Election of the Pope according to the decree of Alexander the third ought to be 41 at the least and of that number only which enter'd the Conclave the first day in which towards the Evening there happen'd a fray betwixt the Souldiers of the Marshal of the Conclave and the Halberdiers of the Governour of the Conclave about their Posts the last of which had the worst of it and in the heat of the quarrel some of the Marshals Souldiers broke into certain of the Cardinals Kitchins and took away a good prize of Silver Plate but they injoy'd it not long for they were taken a while after and process of death order'd to be made out against them yet not so much for their theft as for the fright and confusion they occasion'd in the Conclave Before they went out of the Conclave the French Ambassador having for a long time negotiated privately with the Cardinals of his Nation he produc'd a Letter from his Master in which he declared his indifference either to one person or other his Ambassador in a long Oration pressing and exaggerating that his most Christian Majesty desir'd nothing but a virtuous and uninterested Pope yet when it came to the point they did what they could to have had all to themselves The Ambassador of Spain receiv'd not the satisfaction he would have done from the Spanish Cardinals observing some of them tottering and uncertain he would not permit them therefore either to exclude or include any body he only charg'd them to temporize and protract till he receiv'd an answer which he expected from Spain But to Cardinal Sforza he declar'd himself more freely and 't is believ'd he told him the intention of the Councel of Spain about the Election of one of the two persons Rospigliosi or Farnese who were they which seem'd to have come Popes into the Conclave About 5 a Clock in the morning all went out of the Conclave which being lock'd up immediately the Cardinal Chamberlain accompany'd with two others went about visiting all places to see if there were any body staid privately behind besides such as were deputed by the Colledge after which the usual Oaths were given and the Cardinals holding a Congregation amongst themselves several Laws were establish'd every one promising to observe them if he was elected Pope they had very strong debates amongst themselves the Mass of the Holy Ghost was sung the Cardinals receiv'd all of them the Communion and after that in the accustom'd Order they began the first Scrutiny And here before we proceed any further it will not be amiss to discourse of the