and declared unto him that he had had a revelation from the god Serapis to addresse himselfe unto him of which god Tacitus himselfe saith that even in his time none knew his originall at Rome But these painims which knew not Christ nor any Christian religion but a little by hear-say did thinke that the Christians adored that pretended god Serapis as is seene by a missive which the emperour Adrian writ to Servianus consull recited by Vopiscus Vopisâ—us in Saturnina by whome it is said expresly That in the towne of Alexandria they which worshipped Serapis were Christians So that hereby we may know even by Tacitus his owne confession that the author of that miracle to heale the blind man was that God which the Christians adored which was Christ and not Serapis But as ordinarily it happeneth things that are done in far countries are disguised by such as tell them so must we understand that men spoke well all over the world of the miracles which Christ and his Apostles had done in Iudea and in places thereabout but they disguised them attributing them to strange gods and to prophane men and never accounted them as the very truth was Of the same stampe is that which Suetonius writeth saying that Vespasian healed one which was lame and impotent in his thigh Sueton. in Vesp cap 7. and a blind man also who had a revelation of Serapis to go for his helpe to Vespasian That also which Spartianus writeth in the life of the emperour Adrian That a blind woman recovered her sight in kissing his knees and one blind-borne recovered his sight in onely touching him and by that meanes Adrian lost a feaver which he then had For we may easily see that these were Christs miracles or his Apostles which the Paynims would faine steale from them to and for their princes as also to persuade the world that there was no divinitie in them For a resolution then of this point the promises of Messias have beene knowne through the world as also his comming even to the Paynims For prophane authors do often make mention of Christ even Tacitus who sayth That Christ was put to death in the time of the emperour Tacit. Annal lib. 15. Tiberius by Pontius Pilate his lieutenant in Iudaea Behold then how the principall points of our Christian Religion may be proved by humane reason and prophane authors so great and resplendent was and is that light For our religion herein may summarily be comprehended To beleeve in God and in him which he hath sent Iesus Christ our Saviour If these Atheists then will put out their owne eies to the end they may not know God and the Christian Religion neither by holy Scriptures nor by humane reason nor by the witnesse of prophane authors which speake thereof as of a thing divulged and notorious through all the world we know not how to doe any other thing but to leave them as desperate persons to welter in their ignorance brutalitie and darkenesse till God by his just judgement have sunke them into the bottomelesse pit Now to come to our Maxime We say That to maintaine falsenesse in Religion is to tread God and his Religion under their feet Yet true it is that the auncient Romanes have approved and maintained the falsenesse of Oracles although it were not falsenesse invented by men but very diabolicall illusions as shall be said in another place True it is also that they sustained and allowed the bookes of the Sybils and the augures taken by the flight of birds and such other follies But these proceeded from the want of knowledge of the true Religion and for that they suffered themselves to be guided by the Paynim Religion which consisted in vaine ceremonies and foolish lies Yet notwithstanding whensoever by good reason they could know that any falsenesse had slided into their religion they maintained it not but tooke it away An example hereof is this The religion of Bacchus was first brought into Rome by a Grecian priest who made sacrifices and ceremonies in the night time and at the beginning women onely assisted and were present there who after their sacrifices banqueted together The Romanes thinking no harme suffered it for a time but in succession of time men also resorted thither with women pell mell as they say and brought thither a new ceremonie namely to put out candles and ring bels to the end none might heare such as cried when they were forced and ravished There was all villanie committed not onely towards all sort of women but also towards young boyes The Consuls and Senat having discovered this proceeded criminally against them which were found in such assemblies as guiltie of the ravishments of women and of Sodometrie and there were found culpable hereof more than seven thousand whereof the most part fled and some slew themselves others were executed by justice and an edict was made Forbidding all sacrifices from thenceforth to be made unto Bacchus Even naturall reason made those poor Paynims which were ignorant of Religion to understand that that Religion could not be true but is false and rejectable which containeth in it any punishable crime And if they could also have knowne the other falsities of their Religion as well as this I beleeve they would have cut them of whatsoever Machiavell sayth But in points of Religion we may not any thing stay our selves upon that which the ancient Romans have done or said unlesse we will seeke light in the darkenesse In the yeare 1509 about twentie yeares before the Canton of Berne had forsaken Munst lib. 3. dâ— Geograpsis the Papall Religion the Iacobins of Berne would have introducted certaine new miracles devised by Apostata persons to draw unto them the devotion and offerings of people But that seignorie would not follow the doctrine of Machiavell to approve such false miracles but by burning executed good justice upon the authors thereof In the yeare 1534 the parliament of Paris condemned certain Friers of Orleans Sledan lib. 9. which would falsely have made men beleeve the appâ—rition of a spirit who desired as they said that there might be good store of Masses said to deliver him from Purgatorie for it was found out to be but an imposture deceit and invention which the Friers had made to abuse the world and to draw water to their mills There were many judgements of the said court of parliament wherby the falsenesse Papon in his collections lib. 1. of reliques was condemned and prohibited As of the image of our Ladie which was painted in an old Table that had many yeares remained in a painters shop for a shew which Table a Curate nigh unto Paris bought good cheape and boring two holes where the two eyes were of that noble Ladie and at the time when vines weepe placed behind in them two sprigs of the vine tree so that pitifull Ladie wept in the church where she stood which drew great numbers of pilgrimes to
that parish insomuch that the painter himselfe and his wife came thither also in great devotion who had sold it But this marred all that they at last knew it to bee the old Table which had so long kept their shop by whome the fame of this abuse came to the knowledge of justice whereby by the said parliament the Curate was condemned and the Table burnt But another time the said Court of parliament of Paris did another thing that seemed something to hold of Machiavels opinion For upon a controversie of law which happened betwixt the Cleargie men of our Lady in Paris which said That they had S. Denis his head and the Abbots and religious men of S. Denis which said That they had the whole body of S. Denis The Court there gave judgement That they of S. Denis had the whole body of S. Denis the Athenian and they of our Lady the head of S. Denis the Corinthian So that they both were content although before there was never heard of any S. Denis the Corinthian But that was all one they provided that their practise diminished not If they of Ratisbone in Almaigne had intermedled with this strife it would have been hard to have agreed them or els there must have been supposed a third S. Denis for they say also that they have the whole body of S. Denis and have a declarative sentence of a Pope and his Cardinals to confirme it as they say But my purpose here is not to agree them I only conclude That it is a damnable and detestable thing to sustaine lies and falsenesse in whatsoever things but especially in Religion for that is to follow the religion of the devill who is the father of lies 3. Maxime The Painim Religion holds and lifts up their hearts and so makes them hardie to enterprise great things but the Christian Religion persuading to humilitie humbleth and too much weakeneth their minds and so makes them more readie to be iniured and preyed upon ENtring into consideration what should bee the cause that Discourse lib. 2. cap. 5. the force and power of Christians is lesse than that of the Gentiles such as vvere the auncient Grecians and Romans It seemeth saith this Atheist Machiavell that it vvas the difference of Religion For that the Christian Religion makes the honour of the vvorld contemptible and of little estimation whereas the Gentiles esteemed honour to be the soveraigne good for vvhich to obtaine they had an exceeding great fiercenesse and hardinesse in all their deeds and enterprises Moreover the Painim Religion promiseth no happinesse but to such as having fought for their prince countrey and common-vveale vvere replenished vvith glorie and vvordly honours vvhereas the Christian Religion promiseth blessednesse to such as are humble and contemplative and to them vvhich despise most the goods and honours of this vvorld So saith he is it plainely seene That the Christian Religion hath conducted and brought the vvorld unto that vveakenesse and feeblenesse that vvee see it in delivering it as a prey to the vvicked and barbarous people vvhich as they list can deale vvith Christians and vanquish and bring them under the yoke Because all Christians to take the vvay of Paradice dispose and arme themselves rather to receive blowes than to give or take vengeaunce And it seemeth that that vvhich makes Christians so effeminate and cowardly proceeds onely from this that they esteeme more of an idle repose and contemplative life than the active life BEhold the Maxime and the reasons which this most unhappie Atheist hath disgorged in his goodly discourses to blame and altogether to despite the Christian Religion and to bring us unto Atheisme and to despoile us of all Religion feare of God and of all conscience feare and loyaltie which are taught us by our Christian Religion But God by his grace preserve us from such a pestilence and contagion and make us know and shun that execrable poyson wherewith that unhappie man hath infected the heart and spirits of infinite from whence doe pullulate and spring at this day the evils and calamities which wee see in Christendome and especially in Fraunce For out of doubt so many evils and mischeefes as we see and feele at this day and long before proceed not but from a just judgement of God provoked unto wrath against the world for the contempt of his most holy commandements and of our most holy Christian Religion True it is that our Christian Religion teacheth us humilitie towards God For we ought to acknowledge before his face that we are poore sinners and to demand pardon of him as criminall persons doe which fall on their knees before a prince begging grace and pardon Wee ought also to acknowledge that the graces wee have proceed from God and that we ought not to bee proud of any good thing in us Moreover we ought to be modest and gentle towards our neighbour and to detest all fiercenesse and crueltie But doe those things debase and unable the hearts of good men to performe and execute their duties of fortitude and valiantnesse in warre Doth this Christian humilitie diminish their generositie I will aske the resolution of this point of none other but even of Machiavell his own nation which heretofore have come into Fraunce to make warre against the Evangelickes For they have well felt if the humilitie of Christians have so much abated the Frenchmens hearts that they durst not well handle them as they say both backes bellies yet if they will not confesse it the fields which are white with their bones will alwayes give good witnesse thereof It is strange that this villainous Atheist durst utter and send abroad so absurd things which are so farre from all experience and truth If that which he saith were truth it should follow That no Christian prince could stand against Paynim and Infidell princes but all auncient and moderne histories doe they not shew us the contrarie The emperour Constantine the great was a verie humble Christian prince yea of that humilitie as some write as he held the stirrop of the Pope of Rome till he got on horseback yet he vanquished Licinius Emperours and kings Christians victorious of Painims who was a Paynim emperour with him and made him forsake the empire and besides overcame many Paynim nations as we have said in an other place The emperor Theodosius was so humble that being reprehended for a certaine fault he had committed by S. Ambrose bishop of Milan hee debased himselfe so much to acknowledge his sinne as he went trailing himselfe upon the ground upon his foure feete from the Church doore unto the place where S. Ambrose administred the Sacrament and by that meanes was received to the Communion yet although hee was so humble he had verie great and goodlie victories against the Barbarians and Infidels and against other enemies of the Romane empire The emperour Valentinian who was a Christian vanquished the Gothes in Gall and the
emperour Iustinian overcame them in Italie and in Affrica Charlamaine and many other kings of France which were both Christians very humble have notwithstanding gained and obtained goodly victories against the Paynims as wee have otherwhere said The emperour Charles the fift of late memorie obtained also in his time goodly victories in Africa against the Turke Breefely this point needs no further to be debated upon For it is clearely seene That Machiavell is a filthie lier to say That the Christian Religion is the cause that Christians fall to be a prey unto the Paynims For contrarie a small number of Christians have often beaten a great number of Gothes Turkes and other Infidels And it is no more true that which the Machiavelists say That such as doe horribly sweare and blaspheme with Mortdieu Sangdieu and such like do fight better than they that say Surely and Truly because say they Surely and Truly do effeeblish and weaken mens hearts for experience sheweth in many places that this is false When I thinke upon and consider where Machiavell hath fished this goodlie Maxime I can hardlie be persuaded but he learned it out of the historie of Aygolant Annales of the life of Charlemaine a Paynim king of Affrica of Mahumets religion this king was a great and puissant ruler who demeaned and maintained great warres with Charlemaine king of France but he was alwaies vanquished and Charlemaine victorious so that to escape from the hands of Charlemaine by the cheapest and best means he could devise none better than one day to make Charlemaine understand that he the said Aygolant would become a Christian and be baptized Charlemaine rejoyced therat and caused him to come into his lodging with intent to feast him give him good enterteinment When he came in to Charlemaine his lodging he did see thirteen poore men beggerlie apparrelled eating on the ground without cloath as beggars vse to do which Charlemaine did to have alwaies before his eyes an image of povertie to remember Christ and his Apostles and their humilitie Aygolant at the sight of these poore men desired to know what they were Charlemaine aunswered him These be the servants of God yea said Aygolant hath thy God his servants in so evill order and are thy servants so brave trulie I will never bee baptised to become the servant of thy God for I will never yeeld to so base an estate as I see thy Gods servants hold so Aygolant would not bee christened for the humilitie he saw in the estate of God his servants So Machiavell rejecteth the Christian Religion because that thereby humilitie is recommended unto us but loveth much better the Paynim Religion of Aygolant because saith he it maintaineth the heart haughtie and fierce And as for that that he saith That the Christian Religion promiseth not Paradice Christian Religion alloweth not an idle and contemplative life but to idle contemplative people he sheweth well that he never knew what Christian Religion meant for it commandeth us to travaile not to be idle and everie man loyallie to exercise his vocation Verie true it is that amongst Christians there must be some contemplatives that is to say studious people which give themselves to holie letters for to teach others but we finde not by the documents of that Religion That there is allowed any idle contemplation of dreamers which doe no other thing but imagine dreames and toyes in their braines but a contemplative life of labouring studious people is only approoved which give themselves to letters to teach others for after they have accomplished their studies they ought to put in use and action that which they know bringing into an active life that which they have learned by their studie in their contemplative life and they which use this otherwise follow not the precepts of the true Christian Religion Touching that which he saith That the Christian Religion disposeth rather men to receive blowes than to vengeance I confesse that it is true that our Religion forbiddeth us to take vengeance of our owne enmities and particular quarrels by our owne authoritie but the way and course of justice is not denied us And if it were lawfull for everie one to vse vengeance that should be to introduce a confusion and disorder into the commonwealth to enterprice upon the right which belongeth to the magistrate unto whom God hath given the sword to doe right to everie one and to punish such as are faultie according to their merites but what is all this to purpose touching the generositie of hart that men should have in war for although a man should not be quarrelous nor vindictative to find quarrels for needles points yet will he not cease to performe his dutie in warfare for the service of his prince yet Men that are not quarellous are not the lesse generous is there one point in Christians more then in Paynims that is That a Christian being well resolved in his conscience that he beareth armes for a good and just cause as for the good of his prince or of his countrey or some such like good cause hee will lesse esteeme of his life and will more willingly hazard it than a Paynim or an Infidell will doe because hee hath a firme trust and beleefe that hee shall enjoy the eternall life after this fraile life Caesar writeth That our auncient Gaules were very generous and warlike because they held as resolute the immortalitie of soules and that they that die die not at all How much more then ought Christians to bee generous which not onely are resolved of the immortalitie of soules but do also know that God hath prepared for them an eternall rest an immortall glorie and a perdurable beatitude with him and his angels Surely as the life and eternall felicitie are more excellent than this fraile life full of miseries and calamities so the Christian will never doubt nor feare to change the one for the other but with a magnanimous and generous heart will willingly alwaies bestow his life in a just quarrell Machiavell and all his schoole of Atheists which have nothing that so much fears their conscience as to thinke of God have no such mind They shew themselves generous and valiant to execute some massacre to sley men unarmed which have no meanes to defend themselves but otherwise they are resolute people to hold themselves far from blowes Finally when Machiavell saith That the Christian Religion teacheth us to despise A Christian may desire honour by lawfull meanes honor he shewes himselfe a stinking lier True it is that a man must distinguish the vertue and that which is good from that which is the vice and the evill which resembleth it For ambition is a vice which commeth very nigh the desire of good reputation which good men ought to have If then a man travaile and take paines to come to some estate and greatnesse by all lawfull and unlawfull meanes and beeing
come thereunto useth it fiercely and to his own commoditie rather than to the profit of the Commonwealth we confesse that our Religion teacheth us to flie and despise such honours But when a man will maintaine himselfe by all honest and lawfull meanes in a good and entire reputation although by such meanes he aspire to some estate and dignitie whereof he feeles himselfe capable well to use it and to serve God and the Commonweale therein we say That by our Christian Religion there is not forbidden us such an aeffectation of honor and that lawfully wee may yea we ought to seeke and pursue to have such an honor Breefely the thing which Christians hold most precious and deare is their conscience towards God and their honour amongst men M. Philip de Comines king Lewis the eleventh his chamberlaine writeth That this king was very humble in habits in words and in all other things and that hee could well acknowledge his faults and amend them and that these vertues were the meanes whereby he dispatched great affaires which he had on his armes at his first comming to the crowne so had hee ordinarily this notable sentence in his mouth cleane contrarie from Machiavell his Maxime When Pride marcheth before Shame with domage followeth So must we say That humilitie kindnesse gentlenesse patience easinesse to pardon clemencie and all other vertues which accord and agree with an humane and benigne nature are not contrarie to the true magnanimitie but very covenable and agreeing thereunto For magnanimitie is no other thing but a constant and perpetuall will to employ himselfe couragiously in all good and vertuous things and to flie abate and chase away all vices and vicious things It is then magnamitie to be humble soft gentle patient enclined to pardon to be farre from vengeance since all those things are vertues and not vices And by the contrarie it is pusillanimitie to bee proud rigorous sharpe impatient vindicate and cruell because all those things are vices and not vertues For that vertue of Magnanimitie is never accompanied with the said vices neither receives them to wait upon her onely she is waited upon with all other vertues And for example hereof there were never men more moderate more humble and gentle nor more enclined to pardon than were Scipio the African than Iulius Caesar than Alexander the great than great Pompeius Yet were there never in the world men which were more magnanimous than they As much may wee say of Charlemaine Philip Augustus the Conqueror saint Lewis Charles le Sage Charles the seventh Lewis the twelfth and many other kings of Fraunce which were very magnanimous yet very soft and gentle But I shall in another place handle this point more at large and shew That magnanimitie hath alwayes been joyned with humanitie gentlenesse and clemencie and contrarie pusillanimitie hath alwaies beene accompanied with crueltie pride and vengeance 4. Maxime The great Doctors of the Christian Religion by a great ostentation and stiffenesse have sought to abolish the remembrance of all good letters and antiquitie THe Christian Religion saith this Atheist hath held this practise Discourse lib. 2. to abolish the Paynim Religion first to deface the memorie of all order and the ceremonies thereof and of all old Theologie After that it sought to abolish also the Poets and Historiographers and to extinguish the totall knowledge of the deeds and ieasts of excellent persons and of all antiquitie destroying all old images and all that might represent any signe or trace of the vvorld passed yet it could not altogether abolish good letters because it vvas constrained to use the Latine language therevvith to vvrite her new law by the meanes of vvhich language some part of the ancient vvorkes yet remaineth But if the Christian Religion could have formed a new language in a small time you should have seene all antiquitie quite banished and gone But S. Gregorie and other Doctors of that Religion vvhich so obstinately persecuted the letters and writings of the Gentiles were constrained themselves to write them in the Latin tongue The Paynim Religion at his beginning did the same to the Religion vvhich vvas before it for saith hee Sects and Religions change and varie two or three times in five or six thousand yeares and the last makes alwayes perish the remembrance of all that had beene before it and if any kept any reliques of the memorie thereof men held them for fables and gave no credit unto them more than unto the hystorie of Diodorus the Sicilian who begins a narration of things done fortie or fiftie thousand yeares before MAchiavell desirous to shew himselfe a very Atheist without religion and a man full of ignorance and beastlinesse advanceth now this Maxime the very contrarie whereof is plainely seene in the writings of them of our Religion which this impostor and deceiver blameth as altogether false and against truth For so much doth there want that the writers of the bookes of our Religion would abolish good letters as the liberall arts the knowledge of tongues hystories poesies other of the Elders sciences that cleane contrarie they have with them aided and helped themselves to confute the errors of the Painim Religion For they were forced to The Christiā doctors have confuted the Painims by their owne bookes use them against the Painims to vanquish them either with naturall reason or with allegations and authorities out of their owne books because they received not the authoritie of the Bible And whosoever reads the ancient Doctors will witnesse that it is true That they have filled their bookes with allegations of prophane and Painim authors and he that will see this more at large let him reade S. Augustine of the citie of God and the Christian institutions of Lactantius Firmian For he shal see that the purpose of those two authors in the said bookes is no other but to confute and overthrow the Painims Religion with the falsenesse thereof by their owne bookes and to approove and set out ours True it is that often they marke the faults A Christian ought not to be too much givē to profane authors and ignorances of Painim authors and admonish Christians to reade them with a spirit of sobrietie and not to give themselves so much unto them as to leave the holy Scriptures Which admonitions are good and holy and also are necessary even in our time For there are at this day infinit persons which so much please themselves in prophane authors some in Poets some in Hystoriographers some in Philosophie some in Physick or in Law that they care nothing to reade or els to know any thing for the salvation comfort of their soules Some care not at all for it others reserve that studie till they have ended the studies of other sciences in the mean-while the time runneth away and oftentimes it commeth to passe that when they must needs dislodge out of this world their prophane studies are not ended nor
wasted and burned so many bookes as they could finde being enemies of all learning and letters and who within this hundreth yeares hath restored good letters conteined in the bookes of the auncient Paynims Grecians and Latins hath it beene the Turke who is a Paynim It is well enough knowne that he is an enemie of letters and desireth none Nay contrarie it hath beene the Christians which have restored them and established them in the brightnesse and light wherein we see them at this day The knowledge of the Greeke Latin and Hebrew tongues in other countries have beene brought in by others but into our countries of France that they have come and doe so flourish wee may thanke king Francis the first of happie memorie and since the restauration of tongues and humane sciences men have well experimented that they are verie requisite and profitable well to understand the Scriptures of our Christian Religion so farre are wee off from rejecting them And as for that which Machiavell saith That our Christian Religion hath sought to abolish the memorie of all antiquitie how dare he openlie oppugne the manifest truth for none is ignorant that the true and primative antiquitie is of the Hebrews whose bookes have been conserved translated expounded by the Christians And as for the antiquitie of the Paynims doth any man finde that the Christians have caused to perish Homer Hesiodus Berosus or any other authors of antiquitie nay they they are which have conserved them which have aided themselves with them and which have interpreted them Eustachius the great commentor of Homer was not he a Christian yea a bishop But I shame to stay in the confutation of the impudent lies of this Atheist for young and meane schollers may easilie impugne his impudent lies Machiavell saith That it succeeded not so well with our Christian Religion as it would when it went about to abolish good letters because it was constreined to use the Latin tongue wherein all humane sciences were written Herein doth he manifestlie shew his beastlinesse and ignorance for who constreined our Christian doctors to write in Latin the olde and new Testament were first written in Hebrew and Greeke therefore the Latin doctors if they had list might have written in these languages as did S. Chrisostome S. Athanasius S. Basile S. Cirill Eusebius and manie others yet if writers had used these languages men would nor have ceased to preach in Latin to the Latins in the French to the French in the Allemaigne to the Allemaignes and to other nations to everie one in his language for it hath been seene not past threescore yeares agoe that in Italie France Alemaigne Spaine and other where the Christian Religion was not written in the mothers tongue yet men left not to hold the said Religion in the said countries but since it hath beene brought into everie of those languages for the commoditie of the people as it was brought into the Latin tongue by S. Augustine S. Ambrose S. Ierome S. Gregorie and other Latin doctors of the primitive Church of their time yet if they had written in Hebrew or Greeke the Christian Religion had not left and ceased to subsist and stand for that And although the Latin prophane books had perished the Latin language which then was vulgar had not therefore perished therefore doth Machiavell well shew his beastlinesse to say that the Christian Religion hath beene constrained to use the Latin language and that by that meanes the prophane Latin authors have beene conserved But what means he when he saith That if the Christian Religion could have formed a new tongue it had abolished the memorie of all antiquitie hath there been at any time in any countrie any Religion which hath formed a new language and how comes it that a Religion can bee received by the meanes of a new unknowne tongue If the Christian Religion had invented a new tongue it could never have been understood nor received and by consequent could not have abolished the bookes written in the Latin tongue likewise using the Latin tongue that was in common use it could no more abolish the books written in that tongue according to the saying of the said Machiavell and therefore take it which way you will if the Christian Religion had invented a new tongue or that it had used the Latin tongue as it did and doth it could not extinguish abolish the bookes written in the Latin tongue therefore Machiavell knows not what he saith As little knoweth he what he saith when he holds That sects and Religions have varied twise or thrice in five or sixe thousand yeares and that the last causeth alwaies the remembrance of the first to perish for who hath revealed unto him this secret who hath told him newes of things done before Moses time if it were not Moses himselfe Brieflie there is neither reason nor historie whereupon he may found that impudent lie But hereby he would shew that if any doubt whether he be not a very Atheist that he hath no more cause to doubt for for a proofe hereof he makes a declaration that he beleeves nothing of that which is written in the holy Scripture of the creation of the world nor of the Religion of God which wee hold since Moses For by the holy Scripture it is seene that there are not yet six thousand yeares since the creation of the world It is also seene that the Christian Religion of Messias and Christ changed not since the said creation but hath alwaies endured and shall endure till the consumation of the world And as for Painim Religions they have changed from one into an other in a little time and in one same countrie as histories do shew At Rome in the time of Romulus there was a Religion such as it was which Numa changed and devised an other more cerimonious After the religion of Numa changed strange Religions of the Grecians others were received at Rome insomuch that about five hundreth yeares after Numa when his bookes were found in his sepulcher and men read them they found no part of their Religion in them as shall be more fully said in his place Brieflie these Painim Religions still and often changed in regarde of their forme and ceremonies but in substance they changed nothing since the children of Caine who began to follow the false Religion for whatsoever outward change there was within it was alwaies divelish Religion having for his author the father of lies of falsenesse and therfore Machiavell knows not what he saith but that he is an Atheist and so would manifest himselfe to be one by discovering that he beleeved not the holy Scriptures He thought to have immortalized his name by making himselfe knowne to posteritie that he was a perfect Atheist replenished with all impietie like as Nero did who soughr meanes to make Suet. in Neron cap. 55. in Calig cap. 31. men speake of him after his death in sleying his mother
and other vices For as for good and naturall Frenchmen they will never advaunce them because they are strangers vnto them and by consequent suspected not to bee faithfull enough unto them following the said Maxime Where is now then the generositie of our ancient Frenchmen who made themselves redoubted amongst strange nations Where are now our auncestors vertues who have caused the Levant to tremble have sent out their reputation into Asia and hath repulsed and driven back the Gothes and Sarracens out of France Spaine and Italie For it seemeth that at this day the Frenchmen hold no more any thing of their ancestors valour seeing they suffer in comparison to them so few strangers to dominiere so imperiously over them and so to debase themselves and to carry on their backes such insupportable burdens and to suffer themselves to be driven from the Charges and Estates of the common-wealth Truly this is farre from making us to be redoubted and obeyed in strange countries when strangers constreine us to obey them and to take the yoke in our owne countrie This is to doe cleane contrarie to our auncestors who subjected strangers unto them when contrarie we subject our owne selves to strangers The Frenchmen were wont to be reputed franke liberall far from all servitude but now our stupiditie carelesnesse cowardize do make us servants slaves to the most dastardly cowardly nation of Christendome Our ancestors have vanquished and subjugated in battaile by armes great Italian armies but we suffer our selves to be over come by a small number of Italians armed with a rock a spindle and a pen and inckhorne Shall we alwayes be thus bewitched see we not that by secret and and unknowne meanes they overthrow and cause to die by treasons poysonings injustice now one now another of the greatest that they looke to no other marke but to ruinate the nobilitie and all men of valour in France which are suspected to favour the common-weale or disfavour them Be sleepie no longer for it is time to awake and to thinke what we have to doe and not to attend till from the particular ruine now of one house then of another we see all France vpon the earth It is alreadie but too much established and we have but too long attended to provide for our affairs and to oppose our selves against the deseignes and machinations of these strangers all which are discovered and knowne to such as will not shut their eyes Let us then stir up in our selves the generositie and vertue of our valiant great grandfathers and shew that we are come from the race of those good noble Frenchmen our auncestors which in old time past have brought under their subjection so many strange nations and which so many times have vanquished the Italian race which would make us now serve Let us not leave off for a sort of degenerate Frenchmen adherents to the pernitious purposes of that race to maintaine and conserve the honors and reputation of loyaltie integritie and valiancie of our French nation which these bastardlie Italians have contaminated and foiled by their cruelties massacres and perfidies Wee want nothing but courage to effect all this for these Messiers would not stand one whit if they knew once that it were in good earnest and with good accord that the Frenchmen would send them to excercise their tyrannies in their owne countrey and force them to make account of such as they have committed in Fraunce Here endeth the first Part entreating of such Counsell as a Prince should use THE SECOND PART TREAting of the Religion which a Prince ought to hold ¶ The Praeface AFter having before discoursed largely enough What Counsell a prince should have and take it will not be to any evill purpose to handle What Religion he ought to hold and cause to bee observed in his dominions For it is the first and principall thing wherein he ought to employ his Counsell namely That the true and pure Religion of God be knowne and being knowne that it bee observed by him and all his subiects Machiavell in this case as a very Atheist and contemner of God giveth another document to a prince for he would That a prince should not care whether the Religion that he holdeth be true or false but sayth That he ought to support and favour such falsities as are found therein And hee comes even to this point as an abhominable and wicked blasphemer that he preferreth the Religion of the Paynims before the Christian and yet his booke is not condemned as hereticall by our Sorbonists But before we enter to confute his detestable Maximes I will in manner of a Preface demonstrat in few words the true resolution that a prince ought to have in this matter I presuppose then by a certaine Maxime That the prince ought to hold the Christian Religion as it is seene by all antiquitie simplicitie and excellencie of doctrine For in the first place none can deny but it is more ancient thā any other of all the Religions Antiquitie of Christian Religion that ever were because it takes his foundation upon the bookes of Moses and the promises of God of Christ and Messias contained in them bookes which were made to our first Fathers from the beginning of the world But there is no author Greeke or Latine which was not long after Moses and it is a thing confessed and held amongst all learned men That Moses writ his bookes many hundred years before Homer Berosus Hesiodus Manethon Metasthenes and others like which many men hold for the most auncient Writers Moreover when Moses describeth unto us the generation of Noe and sheweth us that his children have bene as the first stem and root of divers nations of the world in token and signe thereof these nations hold yet at this present the names of such children doth not this shew plainly and truly that Moses begun at the worlds beginning Of Madens came the Medians of Ianus the Ionians of Iobel the Iberians of Riphat the Riphaeans of Tigran the Tigranians of Tharsis the Tharsians of Cithin the Cyprians of Canaan the Cananites of Sidon the Sidonians of Elam the Elamites of Assur the Assyrians of Lud the Lydians and others all these were the children nephews or arrere-nephews of Noe from whence the said nations have taken their names it followeth therefore that they were the first stocks and roots of them Againe if we looke to the ceremonies that in times past the Paynims used in their sacrifices men shall easily know that they are but apish imitations of such sacrifices as were ordained of God which are described by Moses For the sacrifice of Iphigenia which the Graecians made in Aulide to prosper them in the war they enterprised against Troy what other thing is it than an imitation of Iepthe his sacrifice who made a vow of a sacrifice to prosper him in the war he enterprised which sacrifice fell after by the divine
will upon his owne daughter The custome which the Gaulois and many other people had to immolat and offer criminall men when they had an opinion that God was angrie with them what other thing was it but a following of the sacrifice of Abraham and of the sacrifices that God had commaunded for the expiation of sinnes The Paynims also imitated this of Moses his sacrifices that they immolated the like beasts and reserved also a part of the beast sacrificed to eat So that thereby also it is clearly seene That the Religion of Moses is the primitive and first and that the other religions are but fowle and lazie pourtratures and imitations thereof From hence followeth it That our Christian Religion which draweth his principles from the promises of Messias contained in Moses is the most ancient of the world yea as ancient as the world it selfe For I wil not vouchsafe to stay upō the refutation of the strange opinion of Machiavell and other ancient Philosophers Paynims which have maintained That the world had no beginning but I send them to Empedocles Plato and other ancient Paynim Philosophers which have maintained the contrarie I thinke that the ignorance of the philosophers which held That the world had no beginning shal something excuse them because they never saw the bookes of Moses and in a thing so difficile and hard to comprehend the spirits of men might easily faile But the impietie of Machiavel is no way excusable who hath seene the bookes of Moses yet followeth that wicked opinion like a mocker and contemner of the holy Scripture thinking to shew that he knowes more than others he I say who is ignorant and full of brutish beastlinesse as God willing I shall make knowne As for the simplicitie of the Christian Religion herein it is seene That the Christians Simplicitie of the Christian Religion will know God as he will that we should know him and as he hath manifested himselfe unto us simply without passing further For they are not so presumptuous as were those foolish Paynim philosophers which disputed of the Essence of God and disputing upon that point fell into opinions the most absurd and strange of the world Some after they had much dreamed in their brains cōcluded That the universall world was God others That it was the Soule of the world others That it was the Sun and others set forward certaine other like monstrous opinions They disputed also of his Power of his Eternitie and of his Providence by naturall reasons in all these they knew not how to resolve themselves therein For how is man so prowd and insensible to thinke that his braine which is not halfe a foot large can cōprehend so great and infinit a thing it is as great a foolery and grosenesse as he that in the palme of his hand will comprehend all the waters of the sea A Christian then hath this modestie and simplicitie To know God by those means and according as he will be known of men beleeving That to have a wil to passe further is to enter into darknesse not into knowledge From hence followeth it That the knowledge which a Christian hath of God is the only true knowledge and that all the knowledge that others as Paynims and Philosophers ever had it neither was nor is any other but a shadow and imagination very far from the most part of the truth And touching the excellencie of the doctrine of true Religion herein is it first seene The excellency of the Christian Religion that it is founded upon the promises of God made to the first fathers from the beginning of the world whereby all they that embrace that Religion are assured That God is their father and that he loveth them and that hee will give them eternall life by the meanes of Messias Can there then be any thing more excellent than this Is there any thing in the world that can give more contentment or repose to the spirit of man than this doctrine For when man considereth the brevitie of his dayes the languishments and miseries of this world full of envies enemities all vices and calamities will hee not iudge himselfe more unhappie than the beasts if hee hoped not for an eternall happinesse after this life The poore Paynims having this consideration aspired to an eternitie some in doing worthy acts wherof there should be a perpetuall memorie after them others writ bookes that might bee read after their death others persuaded themselves that the gods would send good mens soules into the Elisian fields and the wicked into the Acherontike and Stigian darkenesse Yet were there some Philosophers which disputed Cice. in Somn. Scipi Plato in Phaedo That the soules of generous and valiant men after death goe to heaven All these opinions and persuasions of men were but to give rest to their minds which iudged man of all creatures most unhappie without an eternall life after this But what assurance had they of these opinions which they gave to themselves These poore people had none neither founded they themselves but upon some weake and feeble reasons For thus they argued That it was not credible that God who is all good would create man who is the most excellent creature in the world to make him most unhappie which hee should doe if he should not enioy an happie and eternall life after this They also say That it is not credible that God which is all iust would equally deale with the good as with the bad which he should doe if there were not another life than this wherein the good might receive a felicitie and the wicked punishment for their misdeeds But what is all this These be but feeble and weake pettie reasons wherupon the spirits and consciences of men can find no good foundation to repose themselves and to take an assured resolution of a salvation and an eternall felicitie But the Christian hath another foundation than this for he knoweth that God is of old gone out if I may so say from his throne in heaven to communicate and manifest himselfe to our auncient fathers to speake vnto them to declare unto them his bountie and love towards mankind hee knowes that God hath made them promises of Messias which he hath since accomplished and that in him he hath promised to give eternall life to all them which lay hold of that Messias and use his meanes to come unto it These promises have ben many times reiterated to our said fathers and in ages well distant one from another that they might not be forgotten but that they might be so much the more cleare and known of every one insomuch that the Paynims themselves which never read our fathers writings have had some knowledge of the promises of God touching Messias they were so cleare not orious and well knowne as we shall say more at full in another place Heare thē for a resolution a great excellencie in this doctrine of Christian
Religion viz. what it brings us to a certain knowledge and a firme assurance of an eternall life after this which knowledge and assurance is not founded upon certaine leane Phylosophicall reasons but upon the promises proceeding from the very mouth of God which is the truth it selfe and cannot lie And as for the doctrine of maners I confesse that the Paynims and Philosophers which have held other religions have spoken and reasoned in reasonable good tearms but yet their doctrine cōmeth nothing nigh to that which the Christian Religion teacheth us thereof True it is that the Paynims have spoken something well of Iustice Temperance Clemencie Prudence Loyaltie Fidelitie Amitie Gentlenesse Magnanimitie Liberalitie Love towards ones countrie and such other vertues he that denieth that they have not spoken well and that some have not something practised them should do them wrong And the Christians have this in common with them To approve and follow all these vertues and for that cause they disdaine not to reade their bookes and to learne of them the goodlie documents which they have left touching these vertues but yet I must say that the Christian Religion hath lanched and entred farre deeper into the doctrine of good manners then the Paynims and Philosophers have done For proofe hereof I will take the Maxime of Plato That we are not only borne for our selves but that our birth is partlie for our countrie partlie for our parents and partlie for our friends behold a goodlie sentence we can say no other but if we come to conferre it with the doctrine of Christians it will be found maimed and defective For what mention doth Plato make of the poore where and in what place of this notable sentence doth he set them he speakes not at all of them breefly he would that our charitie should bee first employed towards our selves which they have well marked followed which say That a well ordered charitie begins at himselfe But this is farre from the doctrine which S. Paul teacheth the Christians when he sayth That Charitie seeks not her owne and also that which Christ himselfe commaundeth us To love our neighbour as our selves Secondly Plato placeth our love towards our countrey Thirdly our love towards our parents and lastly our friends And what becomes of the poore Let them doe as they can for Plato his Charitie stretcheth not to them And indeed a poore person in the time of the Paynims which had no meanes to live had no shorter way then to sell himselfe to be a slave unto him that bought him who afterward served himselfe with him and nourished him If such a poore man found no man to buy him he died with hunger True it is that some were sometimes touched with commiseration of humanitie towards poore persons when they saw thē with their eies languishing and in miserie but they called not this commisseration a vertue but only an humane passion Neither had they any hospitals to lodge and nourish the poore in nor their princes or great lords had their Almoniers as Christians have When a child was borne evill formed they would kill it a cruell thing and full of inhumanitie yet was it ordinarily practised yea at Rome it was an expresse law of Romulus whereby he Dionis Halicar lib. 2. commanded to expose and stifle the children which were borne disformed which not only was a crueltie against nature but as it were a despite and iniurie done to the Creator who had created and formed them They made accompt of poore men as they did of beasts for they slew their slaves at their pleasure and when and for what they would Vedius Dion in Augusto Polio a Romane gentleman in the time of Augustus Caesar ordinarilie caused to sley his servants and slaves wherof he had a great number in choosing alwaies the most profitable to cast the other bodies into his ponds which he had nigh his house to feede Lampreis which he had in those ponds In the Paynims time to offer pleasure pastime to the people they caused to make Theaters for combats to vttrance of poore slaves which they caused to bande in two parts one against an other and after that furiously set one upon an other with naked swords and none of them armed with any defensive thing And this sport ended when they of the one part had slaine all the others or else that all had slaine one another to the last the people laughed and tooke pleasure to see this no more nor no lesse than we take pleasure to see Cocks fight Hereby is it seene that the Paynims had no pitie of the poore nor of slaves servants but regarded them as brute beasts and made no more accompt of them but for their service they drew from them Also we never read amongst all their morrall precepts they had that they ever spake of the poore nor that they ever established any good pollicie to help them Yet notwithstanding this agreeth well with naturall reason To do wel to his like And this so noble a sentence which the Emperor Alexander Severus caried for his poësie or devise What thou wouldest not should Lampri in Alex. be done unto thee do it not to another agreeth well with the common sence and seemes well to be a principle of nature not only in the negative Not to doe but also in the affirmative To doe to another as we would he should doe unto us Yet although naturall light leade us hereunto the Paynims have not yet come to this point The hystoriagrapher Lampridius sayth That the Emperour Alexander learned this excellent device of the Christians or of the Iewes in his time Therefore it appeareth by the abovesaid reasons That the doctrine of manners which is taught us by the Christian Religion is much more excellent than that which the Religions of the Paynims and Philosophers teach seeing they make no account of the poore which are recommended unto us by so many precepts of Religion Moreover the Christian Religion abateth the pride of mens hearts and so makes them know they are sinners and the religion of Paynims and Philosophers fill men with pride presumption persuading them That naturally they are vertuous of themselves and inclinable to do good and vertuous works which they attribute to their owne vertue and not to God Yet more the Christian Religion teacheth us to be patient to support the imperfections one of another and to pardon but contrary that of the Paynims and Philosophers persuadeth to seek vengeance For a conclusion none can deny but that the doctrin of Christian Religion is in all points more excellent and perfect than that of the Paynim Religion But when I speake of the Paynim Religion I understand all other Religions unlesse it be the Iewish Religion out of which the Christian taketh his originall for I hold for Paynims the Turkes Sarracens and all other barbarous people which allow neither the old nor new Testament and that have no
knowledge in them But I doe not doubt but some will here make a question in this time wherein wee are The Catholicke religion and the Reformed are all one that is What Religion ought to be accounted Christian whether the Catholicke or reformed Hereunto I answere That we ought not to make two of them and that it is but one same Religion and as the names Catholicke and Evangelicke and Reformed are all one name so is the thing it selfe for the one and the other acknowledgeth Christ which is the foundation and hold the articles of the faith of the Apostles Symbole approve the Trinitie and the Sacraments of Baptisme and the holy Supper although there be some diversitie in the intelligence of certain points we may not for that make them two divers Religions For in breefe the one and the other is Christian seeing they take Christ for the foundation But for this purpose I will here recite a discourse of a learned man in my opinion which I lately heard at my lodging in my iourney from Paris to Basle By which discourse this good person although he was Evangelike maintained That the Catholikes and Evangelikes do agree not only in name but also in doctrin although Sophisters will persuade the contrary This proposition at the first seemed unto me a very Paradox but when I heard and understood the reasons of that good man his saying seemed very true unto me There was in the companie a gentleman Catholike none of these great talkers and bablers but a man very gentle and affable who tooke great pleasure to heare this discourse asked many questions of this good man whom I cannot name for I never saw him before He was no man of great shew neither was there any great estimation made of him at the beginning before we heard him speake but at the end of our Table wheÌ„ we had given thanks upon certain talke we had of Religion he put forth the said proposition All the company prayed him to cleare and illuminate that point and to speake his full opinion therein for there was neither Catholike nor Evangelike which desired not greatly to understand that point He begun then in this manner after he had prayed all the company to take in good part what he should say and humanely to excuse his faults if any escaped Masters saith he I see well that all this company casteth their eies upon me attending to heare of me the proofe of the proposition which I uttered To satisfie then your desires although I have not premeditated all the reasons which might be spoken to maintain that I say yet I will alledge some which I hope you will not iudge impertinent I will then here repeat my proposition that is That the Catholikes hold the same points of Christian Religion that we of the Reformed or Evangelike do True it is that the sophisters wil needs persuade the Catholikes that we hold another doctrine than they doe especially touching the Sacrament of the Altar or the Supper for all is one and touching good works and certaine other points and in veritie the doctrine of our Religion differeth farre from that of the Sophisters yea in principall points as is seene by the conference of our confession of Faith with their articles But I say and will maintaine That the most part of the Catholikes understand not the articles of the Sophisters neither can they comprehend them because they consist in certaine subtile distinctions and sophisticall tearmes The schoole doctors knowing that their doctrine cannot be comprehended by the simple sence and common iudgement of men make the people beleeve that it makes no matter though they understand nothing if so be they beleeve generally that the articles of their faith bee true And this they cal an implicit wrapped or entangled faith that is to say it is so covert and hid that the people understand nothing But I meane not to speake of the Sophists doctrine but of such points of Religion whereof the Catholikes have some knowledge by the apprehension of sence and common iudgement For I maintaine it is true That in these points or in the most part and especially in the cheefe things they agree with us although the Sophisters make them beleeve the contrary And by the way to make it appeare let us a little discourse upon the principall articles of our Christian Religion as of the Sacraments of Iustification of Workes and certaine other points and we shall see plainely that the Catholikes agree with us First if you aske of a good Catholike if when he receives the Sacrament on Easter day he crusheth and bruseth with his teeth the very flesh and bones of our Lord Iesus Christ he will answere you hee beleeves it not and that hee detesteth and abhorreth that talke of crushing and brusing with the teeth the flesh and bones of our Savior If you demand of him if he do not beleeve that when he receiveth the Sacrament he receiveth spiritually the body and bloud of our Lord Iesus Christ he will answer yea that he beleeves so If you yet aske him if when he receives the sacrament of the Host he beleeve that he receiveth and drinketh by the same meanes the sacrament of the blood by Concomitance and that the cup which is given him to drinke in is not but for him to rince his mouth withal he will say he beleeves not this and that eating is not drinking and that hee knoweth not what that CoÌ„comitance is that he beleeveth that receiving the Host he eateth the Sacrament of the body and that drinking on the cup he drinketh the Sacrament of the blood If you demand of him if he beleeve not that in the holy sacrament there is made a TransubstantiatioÌ„ he wil answer you that he beleeves it not because he knows not what Transubstantiation is nor what they meane by that long and prodigious word that he thinketh it is some obscure word invented by the Sophisters to hide from simple people holy things and to darken cleare things And truly it is a strange thing and abhorring from common sence and from all humanitie and Christianitie to bruse and burst the humane flesh bones of our Savior Christ betwixt our teeth And the Sophisters would so persuade the good Catholikes if they could and that they found this goodly doctrine upon a Canon which beginneth Ego Beringarius Where there is this in proper tearms I Beringer unworthy Ego Ber. de Conse dâ—st 2. deacon of the church of S. Maurice of Angiers knowing the true Catholicke and Apostolicke faith detest and anathematize all heresie and even that whereof I have ben before diffamed Therefore I confesse with hart and mouth that the bread and the wine which are set on the altar after the consecration are not only the Sacrament but are chaÌ„ged into the body and blood of our Lord Iesus Christ and that the priest toucheth not only sensually the Sacrament but that
his brother master and many good men of his time and in burning Rome and such other wicked and detestable cases As also Caligula wished to the end there might be a memorie of his kingdome in time to come that in his time there might happen some great pestilence and notable mortalitie or some exceeding great famine ruines earthquakes and burnings of townes Because saith he if my raigne do passe in peace and tranquillitie without some great and notable evill luck none will speake of me in time to come There be men of such wicked and divelish natures which are of this humor which desire to make their renowne immortall by vices and wickednesses as Machiavell hath done who hath so well plaied his part that he hath obteined the chiefe ranke of all Atheists and impious persons neere Aretine his companion who lives in his time and hath written the praise of Sodomie to immortalize his name 5. Maxime When men left the Paynim Religion they became altogether corrupted so that they neither beleeved in God nor the Divell THe Paynim Religion sayth Machiavell consisteth principally in the answeres of Oracles and of Augures And to Discourse lib. 1. cap. 12. have good answeres of those Oracles and Augures they builded to the gods goodly temples and vvith great ceremonies offered sacrifices unto them And the vvorld vvas kept in a marvellous devotion by the Oracle of Jupiter Ammon of Apollo in Delos and in Delphos and other like But incontinent as their trumperie and deceit vvas discovered and that men knew that the priests of those gods made them there make answers after the fancies of such as gave most liberally then begun men to despise and contemne those Oracles and no more to beleeve either God or the divell Then begun men to become altogether vvicked prest and vvilling to break burst and destroy all like unchained slaves vvithout any more making conscience of any thing Therefore ought princes if they will be obeyed to hold their subiects alwaies enclined and devoted to Religion MAchiavell still continuing to teach his doctrine of Atheisme and the despight of our Christian Religion goes about to persuade by this Maxime That there was a great losse to men when they lost the Painim Religion But certainly it was the light of the Christian Religion which caused the darkenesse of the Paynim Religion to vanish away because that Religion only depended upon Oracles Augures other divellish illusions So that in breefe Machiavell his mind is That a man should do well to set a packing the Christian Religion that it were a goodly thing alwayes to live in the Paynim Religion What an impietie is this I pray you Can any sentence come from the divell of hell more detestable than this Assuredly it much greeveth mee to blot paper to write such things and to expose and lay abroad before the eyes and eares of good men so hard words which cannot but sound evill in their eares that feare God But the Wise man exhorteth us to speake to the foole after his folly that he may not waxe proud Should wee suffer such an Atheist that teacheth all impietie to take his course and sow his venom amongst us and yet we should not dare to open our mouthes to discover him as he is shall we hold our peace in such a time as is most necessarie to speake to make manifest such wickednesses as commonly runne abroad that they may be shunned and taken heed of should this be well done to meet with common poisoners and fire-brands of hell which run all about the countrie to empoison to set on fire all places and not to stay them but to let them do what mischiefe they will I beseech therefore all them which feare God to accept those reasons as lawfull excuses that I am so often forced to speake and write so impious and abhominable speeches for although it displeaseth me much to do so yet I dare not but lay abroad the impietie of this poisoner He then saith That it was a goodly thing in the time of the Paynims to see the world abused with that false opinion for such he accounteth it of oracles and auguries but that it was a great mischiefe and evill luck when the world began to discover that such things were false faigned and devised of men because then the world began to become exceeding wicked prompt and willing to all euill as an vnchained slave Machiavell then must note by his owne confession That men then became most Atheisme brings men to perfection of all wickednes wicked in all wickednesse as soone as they began to bee of the Heathen Religion that is without all Religion What meanes Machiavell then openly to teach Atheisme and the despight of the Christian Religion yet this he speaks not to bring us unto Paganisme which hee confesseth to bee false but to make men especially princes and great lords for whose instruction he writ his bookes utterly to forsake all pietie and to bring them to the highest degree of wickednesse whereunto hee saith they come which are of no Religion But when princes or others have taken that goodly instruction and offered that mockerie unto God and Religion they but advance their owne infallible confusion and ruine of their estates as we have in an other place demonstrated by examples But to come to the truth of that which Machiavell sayth certaine it is That as soone as Christian Religion came into light and knowledge the Paynim Religion vanished away by little and little as the light also by little and little spread it selfe True it is also that as soone as the falsenesse of the Paynim Religion was discovered there were some which notwithstanding would not be brought to the Christian Religion And as for such I doubt not but they became alwayes worse forsaking the Paynim Religion as false to follow Atheisme No lesse may we well say of our time wherein we may see many which contemne all Religion because they will not enquire and seeke after the true Religion whereof they delight to be ignorant to the end it may not torment their wicked consciences nor controule their disordinate covetousnesse But as wee see many which are not satisfied nor contented to know the errors wherein they were wrapped but also they have well desired to know the truth which they ought to hold So when the Paynim Religion ended they which forsooke it contented not themselves in knowing it was false but they also thought good to know the true which is the Christian the light whereof made the other vanish away And indeed by little and little every one embraced the Christian Religion there remaining but certaine Porphyries and Lucians which would bee without Religion And would to God that our world were as pure from Atheisme as that world was then should wee not see so many miseries and calamities which are in the world And as for that that Machiavell presupposeth That Oracles were certaine
doctrine doth How then dare that filthie Machiavell say That men become wicked like unchained slaves when Oracles failed where found he this where ever read hee that men were worse and more evill conditioned in the time when Oracles failed than before Rather contrarie we reade That when Oracles failed which was in the time of the primitive Church men which gave themselves to the Christian Religion were of an holy life and conversation they which gave not themselves to that Religion but persevered in their Paynisme did yet alwayes learne of the Christians that which made them better and of more account Let any reade the workes of Seneca Plutarke Pliny the Second and of many In the primitive Church the Paynims learned of the Christians other Paynim authors which were in the time of the primitive Church and he shal find infinit godly and Christian sentences which the Paynims learned of the Christians of their time as may be necessarily supposed For such sentences were never borrowed of Plato Aristotle or of other Philosophers which were before the comming of Iesus Christ As for example when Plutarke disputerh of the tranquilitie of the soule to flie anger to shun usurie of the profit that a man may draw from an enemie of such as God punisheth slowly and of many other points hee uttereth many sentences which are truly Christian and doe hold nothing of the Philosophers doctrine which were before Christ our Saviour And all the workes of Seneca are full of Christian sentences insomuch that many have esteemed That Seneca himselfe was a Christian yea that he was well knowne of S. Paule which it may be was not unworthie to be beleeved For Seneca who was in the time of Nero and was a learned man and a lover of the learned might well have heard Paule speake who at the said time was a prisoner at Rome for the doctrine which hee preached and might well have beene so curious as to talke with him to understand what was that doctrine whereof all the world spoke But whatsoever it was none can denie that the writings of Seneca in many places doe not demonstrate that hee learned many things of the Christians Wee may then conclude That in the time when Oracles failed and that Christian doctrine began to bee published and divulged through the world men became better and not more wicked like unchained slaves as this mocker Machiavell saith For although even in that time there were found certaine Atheists like himselfe men must not therefore inferre that all the world or the most part thereof became wicked Neither hath Machiavell uttered this opinion as having read it in any good author but only thereby to blame the Christian Religion as the cause of the corruption of manners But he impudently lieth like a shamelesse slaunderer which dare bee so bold as to deliver such talke without any proofe and the contrarie whereof is alreadie clearely proved 6. Maxime The Romane Church is cause of all the calamities in Italie THe Romane Church saith Machiavell is cause that Italie which of old vvas the most flourishing province of the Romane empire is at this day dismembred and cut into pettie Seignories as is seene By the meanes wherof she that vvas vvont to subiugate vanquish other provinces is now exposed as a prey for all strange kings vvhich vvill attempt it vvith a strong arme And although of all Christianitie it be nighest unto the Roman Church yet hath it of all other least Religion because therein that most holy Court doth little els but sow partialities and disorders And he that vvill proove vvhether such evils proceed from the Romane Church let them procure that she may remove her seat such as it is for a small time unto the countrey of the Switzers vvhere men live in great rest and unitie For there should you shortly see it fill the vvhole countrey vvith disorder and confusion ALthough the Romane Church be contaminated with many The papall seat doâ—h evill rather far off than nigh vices yet doth Machiavell shew himselfe here a notable slanderer against it for experience hath made us long time know That it rather doth mischeefe far off than nigh hand and that she ordinarily enricheth the place where shee abideth Wee reade That she hath held her seat at Avignon by the space of seventie yeares so that by the affluence plentie of gold and silver which ordinarily arrived there the towne became so opulent rich that it yet tasts thereof and gladly desireth it might bee alwayes there As for the Suiffes of whome Machiavell speaketh I am assured that there are they who would it cost them much money that the seat of the Romane Church were amongst them and if it were there the Pope should not lacke people for his guard for they would furnish him of as many as he would and his Cardinals also for their pay And I am also of that mind for their entertainement they would also accord them letters to be denizons and free burgesses in all their townes though it bee contrarie to their customes to receive strangers For so will they bee glad that there shall every day arrive in their countrey plentie of silver which they cannot but love better than either the Popes benedictions or pardons yet would they also be glad to reape their pardons at a low price And notwithstanding Machiavell saith That if the Romane seat were there placed there would be no good peace for sowing divisions amongst the Suisses that is not likely no more than it so did in Avignon or the countries about it For whereas Machiavell saith It soweth divisions and partialities in Italie that rather happeneth by the humor of that countrey people which are naturally subject to nourish divisions and partialities amongst both themselves and other nations where they have credit as experience is in Fraunce Moreover the Romanes themselves are not of Machiavels opinion neither doe they complaine that the Romane seat brings them any domage At the beginning of that great schisme of Popes they shewed well how greatly they feared to loose their seat For so much were they afraid that the Cardinals should againe have a French Pope which might againe dwell at Avignon where the said seat had so long before remained that they constrained the Cardinals by force cries and popularie violence to elect a Pope of their owne nation insomuch that all through the towne of Rome and before the place where the Cardinals were assembled to make their election all the people in a mutinie cried with an high voice Wee will have a Romane or at the least Froiss lib 2. cap. 12. an Italian This was the cause that the Cardinals gave them a Romane whereof the Romane inhabitants were so joyous that they tooke him on their shoulders to honour him the more and so long and so farre carried him through Rome that they stifled him and smothered him with the great prease amongst their armes When
make warre upon them The duke of Bourbon assembled the greatest lords of the armie to resolve what answer to make to the herauld After by the advice of all it was answered That they Christians made warre upon them to revenge the death of Christ the sonne of God and a true Prophet which their generation had put to death and crucified The Turkes understanding this answere sent againe to the duke of Bourbon and the lords of France that they had by some received evill information upon that matter for they were the Iewes which crucified Iesus Christ and not their predecessors and if the children must needs suffer for their auncestors faults they should then take the Iewes which were then amongst them and upon them revenge the death of their Iesus Christ Our Frenchmen knew not what to answere hereunto yet they continued the warre where was done no notable exploit but by contagion of the aire they were constrained to returne after they had lost the most part of their armie Likewise in the yeare 1453 the Pope having proclaimed a Croisado in Christendome to run over Turkie to avenge the death of our Lord Iesus Christ and to constraine the Turkes to be christened the Turke writ letters unto him wherein he signified that they were the Iewes which crucified Christ And as for him hee descended not of the Iewes but of the Trojans blood whereof hee understood the Italians were likewise descended And that their dutie were rather both one of us and the other to restore rather the great Troy and to revenge the death of Hector their auncestor against the Grecians than to make warre one upon another as for his part he was readie to doe having alreadie subjugated the most part of Greece And that he beleeved that Iesus Christ was a great Prophet but that he never commanded as he was given to understand that men should beleeve in his law by force and by armes as also on his part he so constrained no man to beleeve in the law of Mahomet Behold the substance of the Turkes letter to the Pope which seemed to bee as wel yea better founded upon reasons than the Popes buls For verily Iesus Christ would that by preaching his law should be received into the world and not by force of armes In the time when Christendome was devided into Clementines and Vrbanists by reason of a schisme of Popes we may well presuppose that the one thought the Froisar lib. 2 cap. 132. 133 lib. 3. cap 24. other to be altogether out of the way of salvation and our hystorians say That the one part called the other dogs miscreants infidels c. Their reason was because they said that as there was but one God in heaven so there ought to bee but one on earth and the aforesaid Clementines held assuredly That Pope Clement was the true god on earth and Pope Vrbane the false god and that the Vrbanists beleeved in a false god and by consequent that they all strayed from the faith For as no religion can stand without beleeving in God so esteemed they that they which beleeved not in the true earthly god were altogether without all religion as dogs miscreants our hystoriographers which held that opinion as well as the other said That from that time the faith was shaken and readie to fall to the ground The same opinion had the Vrbanists of the Clementines as the Clementines had of the Vrbanists We have before in another place said That under colour of this diversitie in religion the king of England who was an Vrbanist enterprised to make warre upon the kings of France and Castile Clementines Likewise also the Clementines enterprised no lesse against the Vrbanists yea against the Pope Vrbane himselfe whom they besieged in the towne of Peronse where he was in great danger to have been taken yet in the end he saved himselfe at Rome The king of Fraunce determined to have passed into Italie by warre to have destroyed the Vrbanists but in the end he tooke another resolution which was to cause the schisme to cease so he caused to convocate a great and notable assembly in the towne of Rhemes in Campaigne whither in person resorted the emperour Sigismund and there a conclusion was made to exhort the two Popes to submit themselves to the new election of a Pope wherein their right should bee conserved unto them and if they would not submit themselves thereunto that the Christian princes and their subjects should withdraw themselves from the obedience both of the one and the other After this subtraction was made because the said Popes would not obey the exhortation that was made there was a new election of a Pope in a Counsell held at Pise by the emperors and the kings authorities called Pope Alexander the fift a Frier minor and the other two Antipopes were cursed as is said in another place And thus ceased the warres for Religion in all Christendome To this purpose also you must know That during the said schisme of the Clementines Froisar lib. 4 cap. 33. and Vrbanists the duke of Bretaigne had peace with the king of Fraunce and a great assembly was made betwixt them in the towne of Tours The duke appearing there some of the kings Counsell shewed him that hee was disobedient to the king being of another religion than the king was for the king was a Clementine and the duke an Vrbanist and it was not meet that the vassale should be of another religion than his soveraigne lord The abovesaid duke aunswered wisely That it could not bee called a rebellion or disobedience for no man ought to judge of his conscience but only God who is the soveraigne and only judge of such a matter and that he beleeved in Pope Vrban because his election was before Pope Clements Some of the kings Counsell of the meanest sort made a great matter of this diversitie of religion but the dukes of Berry and Bourgoigne the kings uncles were opinioned that it was not a sufficient point to stand upon to put by an accord with the duke of Bretaigne insomuch that following their advice an accord was concluded yea a mariage of one of the kings daughters with the said duke of Bretaigne This example and advice of these two good dukes mee thinkes all Christian princes should follow and not cease to agree together for diversitie of Religion but to remit the judgement thereof unto God who alone can compound and agree the differences of the same And not onely amongst princes the bond of amitie ought not to bee broken for difference of Religion but also princes ought not to use armes against their subjects to force them unto a Religion but they ought to assay all other meanes to demonstrate unto them by lively reasons their errors and so bring them to a good way and if it appeare not that their subjects doe erre and stray they ought to maintaine them and not persecute them at the
A DISCOVRSE VPON THE MEANES OF VVEL GOVERNING AND MAINTAINING IN GOOD PEACE A KINGDOME OR OTHER PRINCIPALITIE Divided into three parts namely The Counsell the Religion and the Policie vvhich a Prince ought to hold and follow Against Nicholas Machiavell the Florentine Translated into English by Simon Patericke OVIBVS RESPVBLICA CONSERVETVR LONDON Printed by Adam Islip 1602. TO THE MOST FAMOVS YONG GENTLEMEN AS WELL FOR RELIGION MODESTIE AND OTHER VERTVES AS ALso for kinred Francis Hastings and Edward Bacon most heartie salutations AFter Solon right Worshipfull yong men had seene Thespis his first edition and action of a Tragoedie and meeting vvith him before the playe demaunded If he vvere not ashamed to publish such feigned fables under so noble yet a counterfeit personage Thespis answered That it vvas no disgrace upon a stage merrily and in sport to say and do any thing Then Solon striking hard upon the earth vvith his staffe replied thus Yea but shortly vve that now like and embrace this play shall finde it practised in our contracts and common affaires This man of deepe understanding saw that publicke discipline and reformation of manners affected and attempted once in sport and ieast vvould soone quaile corruption at the beginning passing in play vvould fall and end in earnest Therefore Tacitus vvorthily dooth extoll the manners of the Germanes of his time amongst vvhom vices were not laughed at For laughters begun of some publick shame and dishonestie wil assuredly procure him some miserable calamitie Hereof France is unto all ages and nations a vvofull view yet a profitable instruction at this day For vvhē the cleare light of the Gospell began first to spring and appeare Sathan to occupie and busie mens minds vvith toyish playes and trifles that they might give no attendance unto true vvisedome devised this policie to raise up jeasters and fooles in Courts vvhich creeping in by quipping and prettie conceits first in vvords and after by bookes uttering their pleasant ieasts in the Courts and banquets of kings and princes laboured to root up all the true principles of Religion and Policie And some there vvere vvhom the resemblance of nature or vanitie of wit had so deceived that they derided the everlasting veritie of the true God as if it were but a fable Rabelaysus amongst the French and Agrippa amongst the Germanes were the standerd bearers of that traine which with their skoffing taunts inveighed not only against the Gospell but all good arts whatsoever Those mockers did not as yet openly undermine the ground work of humane societie but only they derided it But such Cyclopian laughters in the end prooved to be onely signes and tokens of future evils For by little and little that which was taken in the beginning for iestes turned to earnest words into deedes In the necke of these came new Poets very eloquent for their owne profit which incensed unto lust lightnesse such mindes as were alreadie inclined to wantonnesse by quickening their appetites with the delectable sause of unchast hearing and pricking them forward with the sharp spurres of pleasure Who could then bridle vices and iniquities vvhich are fed with much wealth and no lesse libertie seeing them not onely in play mirth and laughter entertained but also earnestly accepted and commended as being very excellent Yet some troad the steps of honesty which now lay a dying and practised the ould manners and fashions which were almost forgotten For although the secret faults of the Court were evill spoken of yet shame stoode in open view hainous infamous crimes kept secret corners princes were of some credit and faith lawes were in reasonable good use magistrates had their due authoritie and reverence all things onely for ostentation and outward shew but none would then have feared an utter destruction For than Sathan being a disguised person amongst the French in the likenesse of a merry ieaster acted a Comaedie but shortly ensued a wofull Tragoedie When our countrie mens minds were sick and corrupted with these pestilent diseases and that discipline vvaxed stale then came forth the books of Machiavell a most pernitious vvriter vvhich began not in secret and stealing manner as did those former vices but by open meanes and as it vvere a continuall assault utterly destroyed not this or that vertue but even all vertues at once Insomuch as it tooke Faith from the princes authoritie and maiestie from lavves libertie from the people and peace and concord from all persons vvhich are the onely remedies for present malladies For vvhat shall I speake of Religion vvhereof the Machiavellians had none as already plainelie appeareth yet they greatly laboured also to deprive us of the same And although they have vvrongfully bannished us our native countrey yet fight vvee still for the Churches defence Moreover Sathan useth strangers of France as his fittest instruments to infect us stil with this deadly poyson sent out of Italie vvho have so highly promoted their Machivellian bookes that he is of no reputation in the Court of France vvhich hath not Machiavels vvritings at the fingers ends and that both in the Italian and French tongues can apply his precepts to all purposes as the Oracles of Apollo Truly it is a wonderfull thing to consider how fast that evill weede hath growne within these fewe yeares seeing there is almost none that striveth to excell in vertue or knowledge as though the onely way to obteine honour and riches were by this deceivers direction But now to turne mine eyes from beholding so many miseries of poore afflicted France as often as I see or remember our neighbour countries which thing I doe daily so often doe I bevvaile our miseries Yet am I right ioyfull for your felicitie chiefely because God of his great bounty hath given you a most renowned Queene as well in deede as title even in the middest of so many troubles For she comming to the crowne even when England was tossed with tempestuous stormes so dispersed those cloudes with the brightnesse of her counsell and countenance that no civile dissention nor externall invasion hath disturbed your peace tranquilitie these many yeeres especially so many vvarres sounding on every side For shee by maintaining vvholesome unitie amongst all degrees hath hitherto preserved the State of her realme not onely safe but florishing not by Machiavelian artes as Guile Perfidie and other Villanies practising but by true vertues as Clemencie Iustice Faith Therfore goeth she her progresse throgh her realme of England entertained in all places with happy applause reioysing prosperitie of all her subiects she being a princesse of both Nobles and commons by dew desert most entirely beloved Whereas vve against our vvils behold our countrie svvimming in blood and disfigured by subversion vvhich is a ioyfull obiect to the eyes of strangers yea and those labour most to vvork her destruction vvho should bee most carefull to rescue deliver poore France out of her long calamities but the Lord vvill at
happie memorie For during his raigne and before the kingdome was governed after the meere French manner that is to say following the traces and documents of our French auncestors But since it hath governed by the rules of Machiavell the Florentine as shall bee seene heereafter Insomuch that since that time untill this present the name of Machiavell hath beene celebrated and esteemed as of the wisest person of the world and most cunning in the affaires of Estate and his bookes held dearest and most precious by our Italian and Italionized courtiers as if they were the bookes of Sibilla whereunto the Paynims had their recourse when they would deliberate upon any great affaire concerning the common wealth or as the Turkes hould deare and precious their Mahumets Alcaron as wee have said above And wee neede not bee abashed if they of Machiavells nation which hould the principall estates in the government of France have forsaken the ancient manner of our French ancestors government to introduct and bring France in use with a new forme of managing ruling their countrie taught by Machiavell For on the one side every man esteemeth and priseth alwaies the manners fashions customes other things of his owne countrey more than them of an others On the other side Machiavell their great doctor Cap. 3. De Princ. Discourse lib. 2. cap. 30. lib. 3. cap. 43. Machiavells slanders against the kings and the people of France describes so well France and the goverment thereof in his time blaming and reprehending the Frenchmens conduction of affaires of Estate that it might easily persuade his disciples to change the manner of French government into the Italian For Machiavell vaunteth that being once at Nantes and talking with the Cardinall of Amboise which was a very wise man in the time of king Lewis the twelfth of publike State affaires hee plainly tould him that the Frenchmen had no knowledge in affaires of Estate And in many places speaking of French causes hee reprehendeth the government of our abovenamed kings Charles the eight and Lewis the twelfth yea hee hath beene so impudent speaking of that good king Lewis rebuking him for giving succours unto Pope Alexander the sixt that hee gives him the plaine lie saying hee belyes himselfe having passed Italie at the Venetians request yet succoured the Pope against his intention And in other places hee calls our kings Tributaries of the Suisses and of the English men And often when hee speaketh of the Frenchmen hee calleth them Barbarous and saith they are full of covetousnesse and disloyaltie So also hee taxeth the Almaignes of the same vices Now I beseech you is it not good reason to make so great account of Machiavell in France who so doth defame reproove the honour of our good kings of all our whole nation calling them Ignorant of the affaires of Estate Barbarous Covetous Disloyall But all this might bee borne withall and passed away in silence if there were not another evill But when we see that Machiavell by his doctrine and documents hath changed the good and ancient government of France into a kind of Florentine government whereupon we see with our eies the totall ruine of all France It infallibly followeth if God by his grace doe not remedie it soone that now it should be time if ever to lay hand to the work to remit and bring France againe unto the government of our ancestors Hereupon I humbly pray the Princes and great lords of France to consider what is their duties in this case Seemeth it most Ilustrious Lords seeing at this time poore France which is your countrey and mother so desolate and torne in sunder by strangers that you ought to suffer it to be lost and ruinated Ought you to permit them to sowe Atheisme and Impietie in your countrey and to set up schooles thereof Seeing your France hath alwaies been so Zealous in the Christian Religion as our ancient kings by their pietie and iustice have obtained that so honourable a title and name of Most Christian Thinke you that God hath caused you to be borne into this world to help to ruinate your countrie or coldly to stand still and suffer your mother to be contaminated and defiled with the contempt of God with perfidie with sodomie tyrannie crueltie thefts strange usuries and other detestable vices which strangers sowe heere But rather contrarie God hath given you life power and authoritie to take away such infamies and corruptions and if you do it not you must make account for it you can looke for but a greevous iust punishment If it be true as the Civilian lawiers say That he is a murderer and culpable of death which suffereth to die with hunger the person unto whom he oweth nourishment And shall not you be culpable before God of so many massacres murders and desolations of your poore France if you give it not succours seeing you have the meanes and that you are obliged thereunto by right of nature Shall you not be condemned and attainted of impietie Athisme and tyrannie if you drive not out of France Machiavell and his government Heere if any man will inquire how it appeareth that France is at this day governed by the doctrine of Machiavell the resolution heereof is easie and cleere For the effects which France governed by the doctrine of Machiavell we see with our eies and the provisions and executions of the affaires which are put in practise may easily bring us to the causes and Maximes as we have abovesaid which is one way to know things by ascending from effects and consequences to the knowledge of causes Maximes And whosoever also shall reade the Maximes of Machiavell which we shall handle heereafter and discend from thence into the particularities of the French government hee shall see that the precepts and Maximes of Machiavell are for the most part at this day practised and put in effect and execution from point to point Insomuch that by both the two wayes from the Maximes to the effects and from the effects to the Maximes men may clearely know that France is at this day governed by the doctrine of Machiavell For are they not Machiavelists Italians or Italianized which doe handle and deale with the seales of the kindgome of France Is it not they also which draw out and stampe Edicts Which dispatch all things within and without the realme Which hould the goodliest governments and fermes belonging unto the Crowne Tea if a man will at this day obtaine or get any thing in the Court for to have a good and quicke dispatch thereof hee must learne to speake the Messereske language because these Messers will most willingly heare them in their owne tongue and they understand not the French no not the tearmes of iustice and Royall ordinances Whereupon every man may coniecture and imagine how they can well observe or cause to be observed the lawes of France the tearmes whereof they
but Sophists should think to understand any thing of it But contrary we must beleeve That God hath given it unto us simple cleare and intelligible that even plaine people might comprehend and understand it So if it please God we need not leave to be saved although wee know not what meaneth Transubstantiation Concomitance and such like tearmes which are not read in the Bible and although we be not so sharpe and quicke to understand the nature of quiddities the subsistence of Accidens seperated from the subiect the effects and operations of second intentions the motion of the Chimaere in Vacuitie and other like deepe subtilties of speculative Theologie But I have above shewed that the Catholikes and we do well accord in the Sacrament of the Altar or the Supper so do we in the principall points of Christian Religion Demand of a Catholick if he do not beleeve That he shall be saved by the merite of the death passion of our Lord Iesus Christ he will say yea that he beleeveth it Aske yet of him if he do not beleeve That one onely drop of the precious blood of our Savior the eternall sonne of God is sufficient to save all the world hee will say yea Make upon it this consequence That it followeth then that the death and passion of Iesus Christ who shed all his blood for us is more than sufficient for our salvation hee will not deny this Aske him after if he beleeve that for our salvation there must be mingled the blood of martyrs supererogatorie works merits of Saints good works with the blood of Christ the sonne of God he will answere you That hee beleeves not that there must be such a mingle mangle since the blood of the sonne of God is sufficient for our salvation and that that should be to pollute it and that he knowes not what supererogatorie workes are And touching good workes which they say we reiect aske of the least child which learnes his Catechisme if a Christian ought not to do good workes to shew himselfe a Christian he will answere you yea Demand of him also if good workes bee not meritorious towards God he will answere you That they so please God that in regard of them as by merit an infinit sort of good things are given us as health long life children and other graces except eternall life which he gives us by the only merit of Iesus Christ I beleeve there is no Catholike in the world which will say more of good workes than this As for faith in generall we receive both the one and the other the holy Scripture of the old and new Testament Touching Baptisme we agree in the substance namely that it ought to be done In the name of the Father the Sonne and the Holy ghost and with the signe of the water We differ about spittle salt and the coniurations of devils which the Catholike priests do say to be within the body of little children and they chase them out wee indeed cast off all this as mens inventions which would be wiser than God who prescribeth them what they shall doe therein And I assure my selfe that the most part of the Catholikes would willingly that those things were reiected and that priests would not spit in the mouths of their little children and that they had no salt at all neither doe they beleeve there are divels within the bodies of their little children We also differ in certaine other ceremonies which I will not discover now at length But must wee hereupon say that the Catholikes and we are of two divers religions The Friers and Iacobins and many other sorts of Monkes in Christendome have all different ceremonies in habits in rules in doing their services and in all the exercises of their orders yet they are all held to be of the Christian Religion Moreover though there were some difference betwixt us touching doctrine seeing we accord in the principall points of Christian Religion must there be accounted a pluralitie and diversitie of Religion amongst us for the Canon Ego Beren garius Must men make all that stir to rore out all the Canons and artillerie of France and thunder at all the townes and castles of the kingdome to fill all places with armes soldiors and all the townes with the blood of Christians and to make red the rivers for such a quarel as this Must brother arme himselfe against his brother the father against his sonne must needs the Nobilitie ruin at it selfe must all the people be trodden under feet the whole realme be brought into a combustion For verily none makes war upon us but because we wil not beleeve in the aforesaid Canon and yet they which do this unto us do not beleeve in it themselves as we have before shewed But yet there is a point that seemeth to be one of the most principall points of Religion wherein we differ namely touching the Pope in whom we beleeve not But I am of opinion that the most part of Catholikes beleeve in him no more than we and that the matter is not of sufficient weight to make any great contention of Our ancestors in times past have wel passed their time without a Pope and wherefore should not we do so as well as they In the time of king Charles the sixt le bien ayme there were two popes in Christendome the one at Rome called pope Vrbane and the other at Avignon who was called Clement The Christian princes and commonweales at this time knew not which was the better of them yet some followed the pope of Rome and they were called Vrbanists and others the Pope of Avignon and they were called Clementines and when that the pope died at Rome or in Avignon men elected alwayes another in his place so that it appeared that this pluralitie of popes would ever endure The king of France and his Counsell were occasioned to exhort both of them to submit themselves to a Counsell which might advise and ordaine which of thē two should be Pope or if the one or the other ought not to be The king could never persuade them to come to this accord and especially the pope of Avignon was more backward than the other Hereupon the king caused to assemble the vniversitie of Paris and especially our masters of Sorbonne to have their advice what he should doe in this case At that time was there a learned Doctor in Theologie in Sorbonne Colledge who was called M. Iohn de Gigenconet who maintained That the Catholike church might wel for a time be without a Pope yea for ever alledged many good reasons which for times sake I will not here recite Breefly the Vniversitie was congregated and thereby it was resolved that the king ought to withdraw himselfe and all his kingdome from the obedience of both the Popes untill there were another legitimately elected And that there were good means to be dispatched of the pope viz. to leave the collations
great Atheist and contemner of God He was cunning enough to practise Machiavell his Maximes For to counterfeit his Suet. in Cal. cap. 51. Dion in Calig devotion he caused to be bruted That he often spake with Iupiter and that he had great familiaritie with Castor and Pollux which he said were his bretheren and that he had good acquaintance with the Moone by this meanes he not only persuaded the people that he was very devout but also that by the means of that privitie with the gods he participated even the diuinitie with thē yet never man more boldly despised all divinitie than he But consider what such kinde of people are there was never cowardlie beast more fearfull than this wicked Atheist as soone as he heard it thunder saith Suetonius he would cover and quickly wrap his head and hide him in and under his bed I pray you what other thing was this but an extreame feare of conscience when he heares the thundering and resounding voice of him whom he contemneth One day being beyond the Rhine with a great and puissaut armie as he passed over a little straite on foote one that was nigh him began to say unto him Sir if now the enemie should appeare and shew himselfe wee could not be without feare What then did this cowardly Atheist at that word he straight mounted on horseback and fled as fast as he could But as he was cowardlie so was he very cruell and so shall you almost ordinarilie finde in these Atheists both crueltie and cowardise together In the end God sent him his due reward for he endured not long but was massacred and slaine by Cassius Chaerea and Cornelius Sabinus captaines of his guarde whereby this wicked contemner of God felt the just divine vengeance and so knew he that he was a mortall man and not God that caused himselfe to bee worshipped as a God Dion writeth That after his death some did eat of his flesh to prove if the flesh of the gods were of a good tast The emperour Phillipus who raigned in the primitive Christian church was a wicked Arabian who had no feare of God but was the most cruell and wicked of the Pompo Laetus in Philli. world as commonlie Arabians are yet to cover his vices wickednesse he did that which Machiavell commaundeth a Prince here for he fained to be a Christian and something fauoured the Christian Religion which before had beene greatly persecuted but God soone punished this dissimulation and hypocrisie for he raigned but five yeares and by his souldiers was massacred both he and his sonne at Verone The emperour Iulian who was called the Apostata all the time of his youth in the time of Constantine the Great his uncle was instructed in the Christian Religion Pompo Laetus in Iuli. Am. Marel lib 21 2◠but upon a foolish curiositie he gave himselfe to diviners and sorcerers to know things to come which made him forsake the Christian Religion yet he alwaies feigned himselfe to be a Christian because for the most part the nobilitie and the men of warre were so therefore to please them he often went unto the Christians Churches and there used the exercises of their Religion After he was created emperour in the towne of Paris and had set a sure foote in the empire he began to discover that which he had alwaies kept in his heart that is To make open the Temples for Images and to set vp the Paynims Religion which Constantine the Great had suppressed and to establish their sacrifices and although hee durst not prohibit the exercise of Christian Religion yet under hand he sought by all meanes to destroie it for he forbad that any should receive any Christians to be regents and balemaisters and caused to be sowen all manner of partialities and divisions that he could amongst Christians Finallie after he had raigned by the space of a yeare and seven moneths he was slaine of the age of two and thirtie yeares making warre against the Persians Some write That as he died he blasphemed despightfully against Christ crying Thou hast vanquished thou Galilaean Behold the unhappie end of this Atheist and Apostata It is commonly seene That such men as have no God doe give themselves to sorcerers and diviners for of necessitie they must have a master and after they have forsaken God they must needs take the devill for their master and governour The emperour Bassianus Caracalla being a true contemner of God fell to delight in magicke and witcherie insomuch that by the art of necromancie he would needs Dion in Anto Caracalla Herod lib. 4. cause to come unto him the soule of his father Severus and the emperour Commodus to know of them if he should recover of the disease whereof he was sicke The soule of his father or rather some evill spirit appeared to him holding a naked sword in his hand but spoke not a word unto him but that of Commodus appearing also said unto him these words Get thee to the gallowes Being in warfare in Mesopotamia he had two lieutenants generall Audentius and Macrinus which hee incessantly outraged and mocked so that neither of them greatly trusted him he had also at Rome one Maternianus who executed all his affaires whom hee much trusted therefore hee sent unto him a commaund to assemble all the diviners sorcerers and negromancers that could be found to consult together and so search out if any secret enterprise were intended or practised against him Maternianus executed his commandement and upon a consultation of them they made answere that Macrinus had determined to slay the emperour Bassianus Maternianus which before loved not Macrinus failed not to advertise the emperour hereof but the packet of letters was presented unto him at a certaine houre when hee was very attentive and given to take his pastime insomuch as hee commanded Macrinus his lieutenant who was by to take the packet and open it to tell him the substance of them after at some houre of Counsell Macrinus tooke the packet and opened it within which he found many letters speaking of many of his affaires and amongst others one was found containing there solution of the said consultation Macrinus then was much abashed and joyfull withall abashed he was that the said deceiving diviners and necromancers laid to his charge a thing whereof hee never thought Ioyfull also he was that that letter fell not into the emperours hands whom he knew to be very cruell and readie to execute his choller Therefore he hid from him this letter and shewed him the other but thinking of his owne cause he resolved to slay his master rather than to attend whilest he were slaine himselfe and the sooner for feare Maternianus should write againe of the same cause Macrinus then suborned a captaine of certaine footmen called Martialis which also had himselfe a quarell to the emperour to slay him who espying one day the emperour going out of the way to
first Christian emperour besides that he overcame Licinius and Maxentius great enemies of the Christian Religion hee also obtained Pomp. Laetus in Licinio Constantino many goodly and triumphant victories against the Sarmats Gothes and Scythians happy he was and victorious because he had the feare of God and the Christian Religion in exceeding great honour and reverence As much may we say of the emperour Theodosius Iustinian and other Christians As much may we say of our kings of Paul Aemil. lib. 1. 2. Egninartus in Carolo magno Fraunce Charls Martell and Charlemaine which prospered in the wars they had against the high Almans Saxons Frisons and against the Gothes Huns Visegoths Lombards and Sarasens al which were then Painims and infidels of which they obtained great victories and brought them to be subject unto their obedience This grace came not to them to be such victors by their own forces seeing their enemies were farre stronger than they considering their forces and number of armed people but that grace came unto them by the favour of God whom they served without feinednesse and hypocrisie having the Christian Religion in great and singular recommendation and reverence As much may wee say also generally of the most part of our French kings For amongst them we find none such as Caligula Caracalla or such other monsters full of impietie and Atheisme till lately some few have been found not much inferior unto them David was marvellous happie in warre and alwayes victorious over his enemies because hee was a good prince fearing God and honouring his holy Religion Salomon his sonne as long as he served God sincerely without feigning and hypocrisie he prospered very well and mervailously in a great and happie peace and none durst stirre him But as soone as hee begun to practise the doctrine which Machiavell teacheth namely To have a feigned and dissembled Religion and devotion straight had he enemies on his head which rose up against him as Adad the 2. Kin. ca. 11. Edomite and Razin which made warre upon him So generally may bee said of all the kings of Iuda and of Israel one after another That God hath alwayes caused to prosper such as were pure and sincere in Religion and which have had his service in recommendation and contrary upon such as were impure and hypocrites in Religion he hath heaped ruines calamities and other vengeances But I pray you consider a little the reason wherewith Machiavell proveth his Maxime Because sayth hee the people looketh but at the exterior and outward shew of things it is sufficient that the prince shew himselfe outwardly devout although he be not devout at all Ought Religion then to serve for nothing but to please and be agreeable unto the people or ought it not rather to serve to make men agreeable to God But how wouldest thou that God should like and take pleasure in thy Religion hee that sees the bottome of thy heart and soundeth the deepest of thy thoughts if it bee similed and faigned and that thou beest an hypocriâ—e Neither may Machiavell nor the Machiavelistes that is to say the Atheists of our time thinke men so sencelesse and grosse as they cannot soone discover their hypocrisies and dissimulations Many there are in the world which thinke by their subtilties and dissemblings to be covered and hid yet are sufficiently knowne and how craftily soever they doe it all the world knoweth there is nothing but impietie and wickednesse in their hearts Suppose therefore these simulations and hypocrisies come to be discovered in a prince I pray you into what honour and reputation will hee fall Shall he not be mocked blamed and despised of his subjects If seeing himself discovered hee make an open profession of impietie and of Atheisme as wee see many persons there are which doe it because they cannot longer hide their impietie shall not this be publickely to authorise all impletie and despight of God and of all Religion For certain it is That men which are naturally more enclined to evill than to good when they see their prince follow that course will doe as he doth because ordinarily subjects doe conforme themselves to the manners and conditions of the prince Behold then the consequence of that most wicked and detestable doctrine of that wicked Atheist which is to bring all people to a despight and a mockerie of God and his Religion and of all holy things and to let go the bridle to all vices and villanies From which God keepe us by his grace and destroy all them which teach so wicked doctrines if they will not amend as certainly he will do and so let them looke for 2. Maxime A Prince ought to sustaine and confirme that which is false in Religion if so be it turne to the favour thereof SAge and prudent princes sayth Machiavell doe countenance Discourse lib. 1. cap. 12 13 14. and allow false miracles because alwayes they are meanes to augment the peoples devotion For vvhen the people seeth that the prince approoveth them none makes any difficultie to beleeve them after him Christian princes also should therin imitate the old Romanes vvhich by deceitfull miracles feigned false revelations to encourage their souldiers to execute some enterprise and to cause their subiects to obey their ordinances For they caused to publish either that they had read in the bookes of the Sibyls or that they had consulted vvith the Oracle of Apollo or that they had had such or such a revelation or els that the flight of birds or other like tokens had signified unto them a good augure or divination insomuch that the people being persuaded they vvere true and denounced of their gods they obeied vvith great good vvill that vvhich was commanded them by their captaines and magistrates as if the gods themselves had commanded â—hem In the meane vvhile the Romane heads and captaines knew of vvhat account this marchandize was THis Atheist after he hath given the prince a document To hold all Religion in his heart as a mockerie and onely to shew outwardly a faire semblant and countenance of devotion now passeth hee further and desires That the prince should maintain falsenesse in Religion I pray you can there bee found in the world a greater impietie and wickednesse than this Are wee not beholden to them that have authorized and given countenaunce unto the writings of this stinking Atheist yea unto them which have into the French made two or three translations the better to empoyson that nation Certaine it is That the truth in all Falsenesse incompatible with Religion things is very commendable but most especially when it deales in causes and matters of Religion For since that Religion is the thing which according to the ancients definition bindeth us with God how can falsenesse her contrarie bind and unite us with God who is truth it selfe Is darkenesse conpatible and sociable with light or the obscure shaddow with the Sunne Nay rather wee
alwayes see that darkenesse vanisheth and disperseth away by the light the shaddow also flieth the Sunne and hideth it selfe alwayes behind some opposit Therefore have the auncient doctors of the Church said and held for a principle of Theologie That much better it were a scandale and offence should come than that Truth should be forsaken Which sentence even the Popes themselves have caused to be placed amongst their rules of Cannon right and would to God they had observed it But I see well it is to no purpose to alleadge reasons against this Atheist and his Reg. 1. de Reg. Iuris in VI. disciples which beleeve neither God nor Religion wherefore before I passe any further I must fight against their impietie and make it appeare to their eyes at the least if they have any not by assailing them with armes of the holy Scripture for they merit not to bee so assailed and I feare to pollute the holy Scriptures amongst people so prophane and defiled with impietie but by their proper armes and weapons whereby their ignorance and beastlinesse defendeth their renewed Atheisme They then tooke for a foundation humane reason and prophane and Paynim authors but in truth both the one and the other foundation are so much against them as even by them I will prove our Christian Religion For first if wee consider the least creature in the world and sound the causes of his essence and nature it will Every creature leadeth maÌ„ to God leade us by degrees to one God Take an ante or a flie and consider the causes which makes these little creatures moove you shall finde it is heat and moisture which are two qualities consisting in all living creatures nourishers of nature for assoone as heat moisture faile in any living thing it can no more live nor moove straight is the body occupied with contrarie qualities coldnesse and drought the enemies of nature Mount and ascend vp higher and consider what is the cause that in the little bodie of an ante or flie there are found the two qualities of heate and moisture you shall find that it is because all living creatures are composed of the foure elements of fire of aire of water and of earth in which the said foure qualities of heat moisture colde and drinesse do consist and whilest heate and moisture raigne in the bodie it liveth but when colde and drought doe dominiere therein than dieth it Consider further what is the cause of the heate and the moisture and the other qualities which we see in the foure elements and in the bodies made of them you shall finde that the Sunne is cause of the heate and the Moone cause of the moisture as sence and experience shew it Let us yet passe further and seeke the cause wherefore the Sunne is hoate and the Moone moiste and from whence come unto them these qualities of heate and moisture wee must necessarilie now come to a first and sovereigne cause which is one God for the Sunne or Moone which are corporall and finite things as we see with our eyes cannot be God who is of infinite essence Behold then how the least creature of the world is sufficient to vanquish by naturall reason the opinion of the Atheists how much more if wee come to consider other creatures and especiallie the composition of mans body for there shall you contemplate without going any further so well ordered a rule that of necessitie must be concluded That there is a most ingenious and excellent workeman other than the Sunne and Moone which hath disposed that architecture and building for within mans bodie you shall see appeare an harmonie verie like a well governed common-wealth you see the minde and understanding of man which is as the king that is set in the highest place as in his throne and from thence commandeth all the parts you see also the heart the seat of amitie clemencie bountie kindnesse magnanimitie and other vertues all which obey the understanding as their king but the heart as the great master hath them all under his charge it hath also under his charge envie hatred vengeance ambition and other vices which lodge in the heart but they are holden mewed and bridled by the understanding after you have the liver which is the superintendent of victuals which it distributeth unto all the parts of the bodie by the meanes of his subalterne and inferiour officers as the bellie veines and other pores and passages of the bodie brieflie a man may see within man an admirable and well ordeined disposition of all the parts and it brings us necessarilie and whether we will or no to acknowledge that there must needs be a God a sovereigne architect who hath made this excellent building and by these considerations of naturall things whereof I do but lightlie touch the points the auncient philosophers as the Platonists the Aristotelians Stoickes and others have beene brought to the knowledge of a God and of his providence and of all the sects of philosophers there was never any which agreed not hereunto unlesse it were the sect of the Epicures which were gluttons drunkards whoremongers which constituted their sovereigne felicitie in carnall pleasures wherein they wallowed like brute beasts Out of this schoole Machiavell and the Machiavelists come which are well inough knowne to be all very Epicureans in their lives caring for nothing but their pleasures which also have no knowledge of good letters contenting them selves with the Maximes of that wicked Atheist Touching the doctrine of the Trinitie which we hold it must bee confessed that the philosophers understood nothing thereof and that by humane reason wee can not well be lead to the knowledge thereof but this knowledge is manifested unto us by the witnesses of God himselfe which are so cleare and evident in the holy scripture as nothing can be more but I have no purpose here to recite them yet will I say That the doctrine which I hold in this place is not repugnant nor contrary unto The dâ—ctâ—in of the Tâ—initie is not repugnant to human reason humane reason but consonant enough although the ancient philosophers have not penitrated so far For by their owne Maximes a very true thing it is That God who is an eternall and infinit spirit is not passible of any qualities or accidens so that that which is a qualitie in men as bountie love wisedome an essence in God This presupposed as a thing confessed of the philosophers themselves it followeth That that infinit admirable wisdome wherby God knoweth himselfe is an essence and not a qualitie in God yea it is one the same essence yet is it a distinct subsistence or hypostasis from him For the Wise and Wisedome cannot be without distinction This Wisdome then is the second person of the Trinitie which the scripture calleth the Word or the Sonne Neither also is it repugnant to humane reason to say That these two persons in one
the studie of holy letters commenced and so die they like beasts Therefore are not the old doctors any thing to be reprehended because they admonish men to reade in great sobrietie the writings of Paynims and that men give not themselves so much thereunto as for to know humane sciences they abandon and let goe the divine knowledge which is as much more excellent than they as God is more excellent than man Yet is there some Paynim authors which ought never to be read of Christians or at the least ought not to come in the hands of youths which of themselves are but too much enclined to vices and lubricities For a young scholler can hee better learne in a stewes amongst whores and ruffians the tearmes of all villanie and lubricitie than in that filthie Martiall or in Catullus or Tibullus or in certain books of Ovid And therefore although wee never read any of these poets and so our youth gave themselves only to Virgil to learne all Latine poësie it were ynough and that alone author out of whom all others are but small rivers might learne them all the poësie that need be knowne Yet I will not say but there are many other good poets very worthy to be read as Horace Lucane Claudian and others but hee that well understands Virgil he needs not have to doe with others for the understanding of poësie And in every science it seemeth to be the best that men may well employ their time which is deare and short to reade few bookes to make good choise of them and well to understand them But for proofe of this which I come to say and to shew that Machiavell is a shamelesse lier in that he dare affirm That the doctors of the Christian Religion would or sought to abolish good letters I will here set downe the advice and counsell that they have given touching the studie of humane letters of the Gentiles Doctor Beda as Gratian reciteth in his decree sayth That they which will forbid the reading of the Gentiles bookes do hinder men from having â—7 Dist Turbat apt spirits to comprehend and understand the holy writings because humane sciences doe fashion our minds and understandings to the better abilitie to understand holy letters and that Moses and Daniel which were learned in the letters of the Aegyptians and Chaldeans doe serve us for an example not utterly to reject the humane letters of the Paynims But here I will translate the very words of Doctor Beda He troubleth sayth hee and causeth to faile the vivacitie of readers spirits who esteemeth that men ought altogether to forbid the reading of secular bookes wherein we ought to take that which is good as our own Otherwise Moses and Daniel would not have learned the wisedome and letters of the Aegyptians and Chaldeans the superstition of which people they abhorred S. Paule also doctor of the Gentiles would not have alledged certaine verses out of the Gentiles bookes in his writings Why then should we forbid men to read that which by good reason ought to be read But some reade secular letters for their pleasure only beeing tickled and delighted with poëticall figments and fictions or els for the ornament of their language others read them for their erudition and to detest and confute the errors of the Gentiles and to applie and make serve the good things that they find there to the use of the erudition of sacred letters and these verily doe merit only praise by studying of secular letters And for this cause S. Gregorie reprehended a certaine bishop not because he had learned humane letters but because he expounded them unto the people against the dutie of a Bishop whereas hee should have expounded the Gospell Behold what was the opinion of this Theologian doctor touching the studie and reading of the writings and sciences of the Paynims S. Ambrose upon S. Luke speaking of the same matter saith That we reade the bookes of the Paynims to divers ends namely for not to be ignorant of that they handle and to follow the good things in them and to reject the evill S. Ierome upon the Epistle to Titus sayth That Grammar and Logicke are profitable sciences to know to speake well and to distinguish the true from the false and that sciences humane may serve Christians to apply them to good uses and therefore saith he it is necessarie of necessitie to know them to the end that we might shew That the things which have been said by the Prophets many hundreth of years before are since come to passe and described by the bookes both of the Greekes and Latines S. Augustine also against the Manicheans saith That if the Sibils or Orpheus or that other poets of the Gentiles or the philosophers have written any true thing of God men must and may serve themselves therewith to vanquish the vanitie of the Paynims but yet ought we not therefore to give authoritie to such authors By which words he well shewes that he approoveth the reading and studie of the Gentiles bookes as well poets philosophers as others S. Basile also in his treatise he writ of the manner of reading the Gentiles bookes not onely reprehendeth not the reading thereof but contrarie exhorteth Christians to reade them and to applie the reading of those bookes to his true end and purpose which is the pietie and edification in the faith and Christian Religion And to conclude we read that by a Counsell it was ordained That every where schooles should be established to teach youth humane letters and liberall arts The article of the said Counsell recited by Gratian in his Decretall De quibusdam 37 Dist is this Report is made unto us of certaine places where they have no care to have schoolemasters for the studie of letters therefore let all bishops subjects and people in place where need shall be performe their duties in placing masters and doctors which may daily teach letters and liberall arts for by their meanes the writings and commandements of God are declared and manifested What now then will this slanderer Machiavell say Can hee yet say that the doctors of the Christian Religion have or would have abolished good letters and the writings of the Paynims Will he not hold himselfe vanquished of a lie by so many authorities as we have alledged of S. Ierome S. Ambrose S. Augustine S. Gregorie Baeda and S. Basile which are the principall doctors of the Christian Church and the authoritie of the Counsell which is as an approbation of the universall Church shall not all this be sufficient to shew the impudencie of this Florentine But now am I desirous to know of this Atheist Machiavell what was the cause that so manie good bookes of the Paynim authors were lost since the time of the auncient doctors of our Christian Religion was it not by the Gothes which were Paynims For at their so manie irruptions and breaking out of their countries upon Gaule Italie Spaine they
Christ and understanding of his miracles he required of the Senat that they would cause him to be enrolled in the Letanie of their gods at Rome but the Senat would not Moreover credible it is that in the time of our Lord Iesus Christ when amongst the Paynims the fame was dispersed of Christs miracles as to raise to life the dead from their graves to make see such as were borne blind to heale Paralatike persons and such like that they beleeved that he was God for upon lesse reasons they beleeved others And because he called himselfe the true shepheard and the shepheard of shepheards it is very likely that the Paynims understanding this would divine and gather that it must needs bee the god Pan which they said to bee the god of shepheards and because also that hee said that hee was sent of god his father to preach to men his will they sometimes also gave him the name of Mercurie whom they said to be the messenger and deliverer of the will of the great god Iupiter This may be gathered by Dion the hystoriographer who saith That the emperour Antoninus making warre against the Marcommans obtained raine from heaven of the Dion Capitol in Marco Antonino god Mercurie And Capitolinus speaking of the same matter saith That the Emperour Antoninus to obtaine raine had recourse to a strange Religion but Mercurie was no strange god to those Paynims so that we must needs understand that saying of Dion of another Mercurie than they knew yet gave they him that name as it is likely because they had heard say he was sent from God to signifie and preach his will To come againe then to our purpose the aforesaid learned men that were about Tiberius the emperour hearing it spoken that so many miracles were done by Iesus Christ they easily resolved that he was a god understanding he called himself the great shepheard they concluded thereof that hee was Pan hearing also that he said he was sent to deliver out the will of God and that he was borne of a virgin they made this illation as is to be presumed that he must then needs bee the sonne of Mercurie messenger of the great Iupiter and of some chast woman such as was Penelope for as is likely they could never beleeve that hee was a virgins sonne because it repugned the order of nature that a virgin should bring forth a child And therefore of all those conjectures laid together those wise men or rather ignorant which were about the emperour gathered the aforesaid answere which they made him That the god Pan which died at that time was the sonne of Mercurie and of Penelope applying that to their gods which they had heard spoken of our Lord Iesus Christ Behold then how this hystorie drawne from the Paynims is a perfect witnesse that by the death of Christ came the defailancie and ceasing of Oracles and indeed wee find in no hystories that since his death Oracles have been of any account or fame as they were before True it is that the men and women priests of those gods which answered by Oracles seeing that their master abandoned and forsooke them yet delivered answeres themselves of their own devices but their trumperies deceits and fictions were soone discovered by the divulgement and dispersion of Christian Religion in such sort as the Oracles and the Oracle deliverers became greatly discredited Nero himselfe discovering the abuse overthrew one Dion in Nerone of the temples of Apollo wherein were delivered Oracles and slew all the priests belonging thereunto For a resolution then I hold That at the comming of our Saviour Iesus Christ Oracles failed as the comming of the Sunne causeth darkenesse to depart from the At the comming of Christ the world was amended earth at his comming hee preached the true and pure heavenly doctrine to men and after him his Apostles and Disciples preached it also so that by the doctrine of Iesus Christ and of his Apostles Disciples all Christians were instructed to feare love and honour God above all things and to serve him according to his commandements in puritie and simplicitie rejecting all idolatries superstitions and divine services invented by men Moreover they are in true doctrine taught good maners to love their neighbours as themselves and none to doe to another that which hee would not to be done to himselfe to use towards his the like same charitie that each one would should be used to him to obey superiors and magistrates to live contented every one in the vocation whereunto God hath called him yea generally Christians were taught in all true vertue whereas before the Paynims did teach nothing as I may say but the maske and resemblance of vertue For Christ his Apostles taught men to be just charitable temperant gentle obedient pitifull loving good shunning evill and they taught not so to be outwardly onely but inwardly also without feignednesse or any dissimulation of heart whereas the Paynims cared not to be inwardly vertuous and mannerly so that in outward appearance they shew so to The vertue of the Paynims in outward appearance be to obtaine honour glorie and advauncement unto greatnesse which was the marke and end for which commonly they desired vertue and not for conscience sake nor to please God The examples of Caesar of Pompey of Cicero and generally of all the old Romanes which have had any great reputation of vertue doe prove that this is true and that they never aspired to verrue but to obtaine honour and to encrease their greatnesse Cato likewise of Vtica which seemed in all his behaviors to despise honour wherefore slew he himselfe Was it to please God or to satisfie his conscience It is very certaine that no for he was not so ignorant but he knew well that murder displeased God and that no man should murder himselfe more than another Nothing could move his conscience to incite him to slay himselfe for he felt not himselfe culpable of any thing that deserved it How then Wherefore should he murder himselfe For this not to receive that dishonour to fall alive into the hands of Caesar although he knew well ynough that there needed no more but a little humiliation to have his life goods and dignities saved as hee himselfe confessed and declared to his son and to his friends a little before he slew himselfe but his heart was so sore swolne with glorie and honour that he loved better to slay himselfe than to humble himselfe to Caesar Here behold how those Paynims aspired not to have vertue but for honour and an outward shew whereas the doctrine of Christ teacheth us To desire and to lust after vertues not only to bring them unto outward appearance but also to adorne our hearts and our consciences inwardly therwith and so to please God Moreover also we have heretofore shewed That the Christian doctrine comprehendeth much more perfectly the vertues of good maners than the Paynims
which is so odious to the world brought him to prison where they caused him to finish his daies I will then conclude this recitall That if all Christian princes would practise the Magistrall determination of our masters of Sorbonne and of the Vniversitie of Paris the same would fall unto S. Peter which fell unto Frier Iohn his bird Yet is it not onely by the change of lead into gold that his Holinesse dooth Froisart lib. 2. chap. 132 133. 135. 140. much evill to provinces farre from Rome but also by his interdicts and excommunications In the time of the aforesaid schisme of Popes hee of Rome who was called Vrban sent Buls unto king Richard of England who tooke his part and was an Vrbanist by which hee commaunded him to make warre upon the king of France who was a Clementine and gave him power to levie silver upon the Warre for the Pope of Rome English Cleargie Moreover hee gave so great quantitie of pardons to all them which with a good heart did furnish silver for that warre that it seemed hee meant cleane to have emptied both hell and purgatorie of Englishmen for every man or woman might draw out his father grandfather great grandfather uncles aunts children nephewes and others ascendants descendants and collaterals by paying so much for every poll He further promised their soules to be guided right into paradice which died in this warre or which died that yeare after they had paied the money for that said warre nor that there should be any necessitie for the said soules to stray out of their way by purgatorie and the Limbo but to goe right to paradice The said buls being thus preached and published through England there was every where a great prease that yeare to die and to give silver so that in a small time there was heaped up the summe of 2500000 franks One part of this silver was given to the bishop of London who was chosen generall to make warre upon the Clementines in Spaine and the other part was delivered to the bishop of Norwitch who was elected generall of another armie to make warre upon France which also was Clementine And indeed these two armies did much harme as well in Spaine as in France yet the bishop of Norwitch being a young man and inconsiderat entring upon Flaunders an Vrbanist the king of Fraunce meeting him therewith 100000 men constrained him to retire homeward with shame and great losse In the yeare 1513 happened great damage and hurt unto the kings of Fraunce Annales upon the said yeare Du Bellay lib. 1. of his Memories and of Navarre by the meanes of an interdict and excommunication which Pope Iulius the second of that name cast against all the princes which had sent their embassadors to the counsell of Pise whose lands and seignories he exposed and gave as a prey to all men that would take and invade them For under colour of those wicked and detestable buls the emperour Maximilian and the Switzers constrained king Lewis the twelfth to abandon and forsake Millaine and almost all that hee held in Italie And on the other side the king of England fell upon Fraunce which by the Pope was exposed as a prey with an armie of 3000 English assaying to conquer part thereof But God suffered it not for in the meane time this wicked Pope died and the interdict was revoked and peace made with the English On the other side also king Ferdinand of Arragon feigning he would come to prey upon France entred into the kingdome of Navarre and got and usurped it upon king Iohn d' Albert The Pope cause of the losse of the kingdome of Navarre from the right heirs who was disseased thereof without being defied yea before he knew the king of Arragon his purpose whose successours have alwayes since detained and usurped the said kingdome of Navarre upon the said king Iohn d' Albret and upon his lawfull successors as they doe yet by this title onely of usurpation prey and bootie yet notwithstanding the said unjust usurpers call themselves most Catholike I could here accumulate many other examples of many great domages losses committed by Popes in strange countries and even in Almaigne where they have commonly sowen warres betwixt the emperour and the princes of Almaigne but I will content my selfe with the abovesaid examples for I will not at length handle such an ample and almost infinit matter but it sufficeth mee to have shewed That the contrarie of that which Machiavell saith is true and that the Pope and his holy seat doe much good in the place where they are and many evils and mischeefes in farre countries And as for that which Machiavell saith That Italie is the province of Christendome where there is least Religion he saith very true but what would hee now say if he were alive hee should then find that if in his time they had so well profited in his schoole as to be very great Atheists and contemners of God and of all Religion that now his schollers know farre more than his master And there is no doubt but alreadie long agoe all Religion is contemned in Italie yea and even the Romane Catholicke Will you have a better example than that which M. Comines rehearseth He saith That in the time of king Lewis the twelfth there were two houses at Florence which were principall that is to say of Medicis and of Pacis which were in quarell and enmitie together They of the house de Pacis favoured the Pope and the king of Naples and by their counsell and advice did they enterprise to slay Lawrence de Medicis who was cheefe of his house and all his race and to surprise him the better unprovided and without heed taking they resolved to sley and massacre him with all his race and sequele upon a solemne feast day at the houre that the great Masse was sung and that when the priest begun to sing Sanctus Sanctus it should be the watch word to rush upon them And indeed they executed their enterprise except that they slew not Lawrence de Medicis who saved himselfe in the revestrie but Iulian his brother and certaine others of his race were slaine I demand of you if they which enterprised and gave counsell to attempt such an act beleeved in the Masse we need not doubt but they were very Atheists But if in that time some hundred yeares agoe Italie were so furnished with Atheists and contemners of Religion what thinke you it is now In conclusion Italie Rome the Pope and his seat are truly the spring and fountaine of all despight of Religion and the schoole of all impietie and as they alreadie were in Machiavels time as he confesseth so are they farre more in this time For although the papall Church of Rome both heretofore made and yet dooth certaine demonstrations to sustaine a Religion yet in effect it maintaineth it no otherwise but by subtilties and words for it commaundeth
to plant colonies and chase away the ancient naturall inhabitants from their goods and possessions All which things are directly contrary to the Religion of Numa which he commendeth so much but it is likely that this ignorant beast praiseth Numa his Religion without knowing that it conteined the points which we now speake of I doubt not but some wil judge at the first sight That this religion of Numa could not bee evill which taught so good things as to observe Faith not to bee perjured nor to usurpe others goods and possessions but it must not be approved therefore for one must not by an evill and false introduce a good thing This was good to bring the people to an observation of Faith but to build a temple to Faith to imagine it was a god or goddesse and to doe service and ceremonies unto her these were damnable and against Gods honour from whom they steale the glory that belongs unto him when they by forme of Religion do honour to another thing than him be it a creature or devised thing Therfore was not that a christian oration which was made by Monsier Capel the kings advocate in the court of Parliament at Paris in Anno 1535 whereby praising the dead king Francis the second of that name of happie memorie because hee had care of Religion hee shewed That realmes and commonweales of the ancient Paynims which had good care well to observe their Religion obtained prosperitie in all felicitie For that saith he although their Religion was false and that they lived in error and darkenesse yet they prospered because esteeming it good and true they had it in a singular reverence and observation This oration of Capel had truly a little of Machiavell his doctrine to say that a false Religion was cause that the Paynims prospered But to shew that Machiavell knowes not what hee saith I will here recite an historie Tit. Livius lib. 10. Dec. 4. to this purpose In the yeere 574 after the foundation of Rome in the time of the consulship of Lucius Manlius and Fulvius Flaccus as men digged the earth in a certaine place in Rome they found the sepulchre of king Numa where there were two arches of hewen stone in the one of which Numa was buried in the other were the bookes found which he had written wrapped in waxe in such sort as they seemed to be new there were seven in Latin touching the ceremonies of the Religion which hee instituted Incontinent a fame went of these novels all over how the bookes of king Numa were found touching Religion insomuch as every man attended that they should be divulged and that by their meanes all abuses in the Romane Religion should alwaies bee reformed Yet to doe nothing rashly the consuls gave charge to Quintus Petilius lieutenant of justice well to turne over and peruse those bookes and to report the truth of them unto the Senat. Petilius read them from the one end unto the other and of them certified his opinion unto the Senat and it was found that the Religion which was handled in those bookes was of no accompt and that it should bee a pernitious and damageable thing to the common wealth to bring that Religion into use so was it resolved by a decree of the Senat that those books should bee publiklie burnt before all the people which was done I would now gladly know of Machiavell who so much esteemeth the Religion of Numa without ever having seene his bookes if hee can yeeld a better jugdment of them than the Lieutenant Petilius who read them and than all the Romane Senat. Is not this as a blinde man to judge of coulours who speakes of a thing hee knowes not As for Frier Ierome Savanarola the Florentins shewed well that hee was no such De com lib. 2. cap. 25. 53. 54. man as would leade them to any new Religion neither preached hee unto them any other Religion but the old Romish Religion only denouncing unto them somtime the vengeances punishments of God which from heaven should fall upon them if they repented and amended not their sinnes and this hee assured them as though hee had had some revelation from God But amongst other things which hee preached and affirmed most was that there should come a king out of France into Italie which should deliver the countrey from so many tyranizers and potentates as then held the countrey in great servage and slaverie This talke pleased some which desired change though others delighted not in it About the time that hee made those sermons king Charles the eight made a voiage unto Naples who assoone as hee was seene in Italie all the world began to say and beleeve that Frier Ierome was a true prophet and that hee had well foretould that which they see come to passe The worst was that the said king did nothing worthie of accompt in the voiage insomuch that the best part of Ieromes prophesie which was to purge Italie of so many tyranizers remained yet to accomplish Then the reputation of this good Frier Ierome began not onely to diminish but also men began to say and beleeve that hee was an abuser so that in the end hee was accused at Florence to be a most wicked heretike and his enemies said hee were worthie to bee put into a sacke and to be cast into the river and because hee still continued to preach his first theme That the king of France should yet againe come into Italie to performe that which he had not executed in that first voiage and that the will of God was so and if hee did not accomplish it yet God himselfe would punish it the Pope and the Duke of Millan which were hereat troubled for they thought this was but a bait to cause the king of France to come another time into Italie where of they were greatlie afraid therefore ioyned they together against this poore Frier and writ to the seignorie of Florence to doe justice upon him as upon a seducer and an heretike Amongst others which tooke Ierome in hand there was found a Frier for there never was love betwixt the Friers and the Iacobines which would needes mainetaine A disputation by Fire against him that hee was an heretike and to prove his so saying he presented unto Ierome the combat to commit themselves both into the fire and that hee which was not hurt by the fire should be held as it was reason for a soothsayer and the other whom the fire burned for a lyer and an abuser Frier Ierome was sore abashed to heare speake of such a manner of disputation and indeed would not accept it for he was not so learned not so farre a student in Logicke that he had learned such a kind of argumentation to prove his doctrine by fire yet was there found another young Iacobin a familiar friend of Ieromes which accepted the combat to maintaine his friends quarrell Then was the day and place assigned in
not be corrupt and become cowards by too great peace and prosperitie for want upon whom to make warre The resolution of the Senat was in a meane betwixt these two opinions For it was ordained That the Carthaginians should be permitted to remove their towne into any other part tenne mile from the sea But the Carthaginians found so strange the removing of their towne that they had rather suffer all extreame things insomuch as by long warre they were wholly vanquished and their towne altogether rased and made inhabitable Very memorable also to this purpose is the advice of the Chancellor de Rochefort Annales upon the year 1488. who was in the time of king Charles the eight For many counselling this yong king to make war against Francis duke of Bretaigne to lay hold of his dutchie this good Chancellor shewed That the rights the king pretended to that duke were not yet well verified and that it were good to seeke further into them before warre was attempted for it should be the worke of a tyrant to usurpe countries which belong not to him According to this advice embassadors were sent to the duke who then was at Reves to send on his side men of counsell and the king would doe so on his side to resolve upon both their rights This was done and men assembled to that end but in the meane while duke Francis died and the king espoused Madame Anne his daughter and heire and so the controversie ended The same king enterprising his voyage of Naples caused to assemble all his presidents Annal. upon Anno 149â— of his courts of Parliaments with his Chancellor his privie Counsell and the princes of his blood to resolve upon his title and right to Naples and Sicilie These lords being assembled visited the genealogie and discent of the kings of Sicilie and Naples they found that the king was the right heire of these kingdomes so that upon that resolution this voyage was enterprised Hereby is seene the vanitie of Machiavell who presupposeth That king Charles had enterprised that voiage to get all Italie but that Fortune was not favourable unto him for that was never his deseigne nor purpose neither assayed he to seize upon any thing in Italie but of certaine townes necessarie for his passage in determination to yeeld them up again at his departure as he did And if the king would have enterprised upon Italie hee had had a farre more apparent title than the magnificent Lawrence de Medicis seeing all Italie was once by just title possessed by Charlemaine king of France his predecessor But this hath been alwayes a propertie in our kings not to run over others grounds nor to appropriate to themselves any seignorie which appertained not unto them by just title We reade also of Charles the fift called the Sage That being incited by his nobilitie Frois lib. 1. cap. 245. 25. and people of Guienne to seize againe that countrey which was occupied by the English he would not enterprise it without great good deliberation of good Counsell And therefore he caused well to be viewed by wise and experienced people the treatie of peace made at Bretaigne betwixt his dead father and the king of England for that it was told him that the king of England had not accomplished on his side that which he was bound to doe After they had as they thought well resolved him of this point yet he was not content to be satisfied himselfe but would that his subjects should be also well resolved thereof and especially such as were under the English obedience and to that purpose hee sent preachers covertly into such good townes as were occupied by the English insomuch that readily by the preachers inducements there were more than threescore townes and fortresses which revolted from the Englishmen and offered themselves unto the kings obeisance This then is a resolved point That a prince ought not to enterprise to obtaine a If by warre any can be constrained to be of any Religion countrey where hee hath no title under colour to deliver the inhabitants thereof from tyrannie But here may arise a question if it be lawfull for a prince to make war for religion and to constraine men to bee of his religion hereupon to take the thing by reason the resolution is very easie For seeing that all religion consisteth in an approbation of certaine points that concerne the service of God certaine it is that such an approbation dependeth upon the persuasion which is given to men thereof but the meanes to persuade a thing to any man is not to take weapons to bear him nor to menace him but to demonstrate unto him by good reasons and allegations which may induce him to a persuasion But he that will decide this question by examples of our auncestors he shall find divers to be for and against For to reade our French hystories in the lives of Clowis the first Charlemaine and some other kings of Fraunce it seemeth that their studie was altogether bent upon warre Annales upon Anno 718. against Paynims for nothing but to make them become Christians with hand-blowes and force of armes But what Christians That is when the Paynims were vanquished and that they could no more resist they were acquited upon condition to be baptized without other instruction And most commonly as soone as they could againe gather strength they returned to their Paynim religion And this is well shewed us by the hystorie of one Rabbod duke of Fricse who being upon the point to be baptized and his clothes off and having one foot in the font hee demanded of the archbishop of Sens which should have baptized him Whether there were more of his parents in hell or in paradice The archbishop aunswered him that the most must needs be in hell because his predecessors were never baptized Then the duke drawing his foot out of the water Well said he then I will goe to hell with my parents and friends and I will not be baptized to be seperated from them so he withdrew himselfe denying to be baptized Here I leave you to thinke if this man were well instructed in the Christian doctrine It seemeth that at that day to be a Christian it sufficed to be baptized and commonly Paynims were baptized by force of armes We reade also That our auncient kings of Fraunce made many voyages into Turkie and into Affrica for the augmentation of the Christian Religion and to revenge as they said the death of our Lord Iesus Christ upon the Paynims and Infidels But one time the Paynims themselves shewed them well that they enterprised such warres by an inconsiderate zeale For the armie of Fraunce whereof the duke of Bourbon was cheefe being in Affrica making warre against the Infidels in the time of king Charles the sixt the captaine generall of the Turkes and Saracens sent an herauld to the duke of Bourbon to know wherefore he discended into Affrica to
man guards himselfe from them as from a furious beast and the first that can get him at advantage thinkes he doth good to the common weale when he riddeth him from the world yea each man watcheth to catch him in his snare Therefore no man will give a prince so dangerous and so detestable counsell as to use Borgia for a pattern of imitation unles he would carry him unto the top and fulnesse of all wickednesse and cruell tyrannie which seemeth to bee the end whereat Machiavell aimeth as wee shall see more at large heereafter But whereas Borgea saith hee caused the head to bee taken from Messier Romiro Dorco the executioner of his crueltie I confesse it was true and avow that he did well therein For if Messier Romiro would excuse himselfe and say that his master Borgia commanded him to doe such cruell executions that were no good excuse because hee should rather have forsaken his estate and goverment than to commit cruelties without any forme of justice against the law of God and reason The civile lawes themselves willeth that none should obey his prince when hee commandeth any massacre or unjust slaughter till thirtie daies bee past after the command that in the meane time either their friends or the magistrate may persuade the prince to pacifie his choller and to hearken unto reason And because the law hereupon made by the emperours Gratian Thesiodus and Valentinian is worthie to be marked I doe thus translate it If it happen that heereafter say they wee command any rigorous vengeance contrarie to our accustomed manner against any we will not that straight they suffer punishment nor that our command be straight way executed but that the execution surcease the space of thirtie daies and that in the meane time the magistrate keepe the prisoner safely Given at Verone the fifteenth of the kalends of September in the yeere of the consulship of Antonius and Syagrius It is then seene by this law that Messier Romiro was justly punished as a man too prompt and forward to execute crueltie And if this law had been well observed in France there had not beene found so many and such rash massacres but the commonwealth had beene in farre better estate and the meanes of peace more facile and easie Moreover the prince which will propose one man alone as his patterne and exemplar True patterns which a prince ought to propose to imitate to imitate hee shall finde many which have beene as vertuous as Caesar Borgia was vicious But seeing the greatest and most excellent persons at all times were ever men that is to say not every way absolute but defectuous and vicious some way it is best therefore that a prince doe adict himselfe to imitate all vertuous men in generall and each of them in their particular vertues As if wee speake of heathen princes hee may propose to imitate the clemencie of Iulius Caesar in using his victorie for hee ever simply contented himselfe to vanquish without crueltie and with out bloodshed as farre as hee could Hee may propose to follow the moderation of Augustus Caesar in the government of the commonweale and his dilligence to establish peace in the whole Romane empire For he never omitted any thing which might bee a meane to bring all the world to peace and tranquilitie after the civile warres and he managed the commonweale with such moderation as it seemed rather a civile government than a monarchie He had also another vertue well worthie of imitation for he was a good justicer and himselfe not only dealt in making laws and ordinances according to the rules of justice but also he himselfe often heard mens causes and judged them their right hee was also a lover of learned men and of knowledge and greatly rewarded them and these vertues of Augustus were fit for a prince to imitate The bountie and lenity of Traianus the love of peace in Pius the deepe wisedome the humanitie and facilitie to pardon and the love and studie of good letters in Marcus Antonine are also worthie vertues for a prince to follow But without any longer stay upon Paynim princes which had not the knowledge of Christian religion a prince shall finde sufficient to imitate yea and not to goe farther than the kings of France Charlemaine was as generous and victorious as ever was Caesar yet besides this hee was very liberall towards good people a prince continent gentle facile to pardon enemies and endowed with a singular pietie and feare of God For hee caused ordinarily the Bible and S. Augustine to be read unto him and nourished poore people in his pallace which sometimes served himselfe at the table Saint Lewis was a good and wise king fearing God and a good justicer for hee often sent into all his provinces commissaries to bee informed of the abuses covetousnesse and rapines of magistrates and caused them which were found faultie to bee well punished Wee reade one thing of him not unworthie to be remembred That one day as hee was praying unto God reciting certaine petitions of the psalmes of David fit for that action one comes sodainely unto him to desire a pardon for one that had committed a fault which was death by law hee as sodainely graunted it but straight falling into a verse of the psalme which saith Beati qui faciunt Iustitiam in omni tempore Blessed are they which doe justice at all times hee immediately called him againe unto whom hee had graunted the said pardon and revoked it with this notable sentence That the prince which may punish a crime and doth it not is as culpable himselfe as hee that committed it and that it is a worke of pietie and not of crueltie to doe justice Besides he was very chast far from all lubricitie and never thirsted after revenge Charles le Sage was a very benigne and humble prince who did nothing but by well digested counsell without rashnesse loving the good and safetie of his subjects hee was also a prince that very much feared God he tooke great delight in reading the Bible and would his people should reade it and to that end he caused it to bee translated into French The Prince then which will determine with himselfe onely to imitate those three kings in the aforesaid vertues certainely hee shall have for himselfe a true pattern and example such as Christian prince ought to have and not to propose to himselfe this bastard priests sonne who was a very monster and an exemplar of all wickednesse I name him a bastard because according to the divine and civile law hee was not legitimate although by the cannon law the Pope may legitimate priests bastards and by consequent his owne as hath beene above touched Yet notwithstanding this question is not without doubt whether the Pope can legitimate his owne bastards Question if the pope can legitimate his owne children and the reason of the doubt is because the doctors of law hould That legitimation is
maintained them in peace when all his neighbors about him were in great warre and that hee maintained so good justice amongst them as none but hee alone pilled and vexed them And certaine it is that if men must needes bee robbed and spoiled they had rather to bee so dealt with by one man alone then of many and that subjects will beare it better at their princes hands than of particulars but especiallie when extreame and hard tallies and imposts are laid upon subjects if they bee descried to bee imployed for the publike good and that it bee something softened and sweetened by a good peace justice And therefore de Comines together praiseth and reprehendeth king Lewis the eleventh his master saying That hee pilled and oppressed his subjects but yet hee would never suffer any other to doe them any evill or any way to rob or spoyle them But to many it may seeme that that we have abovesaid tendeth too much unto the dispraise of Povertie which notwithstanding seemes to bee praised and recommended by our Christian religion But hereunto I answer That Povertie of it selfe is neither praiseable nor vituperable but men must judge of them according to circumstances For if it bee suffered with an holy patience by a Christian man who takes in good part and contenteth himselfe with the vocation whereunto God hath called him and with the meanes which he hath given him and if it bee accompanied with a simple and gentle spirit assuredly such a Povertie may bee placed in the ranke of the greatest vertues For it is no small vertue to bee able well and constantly to beare Povertie without straying out of the path but rather a very difficill and rare thing Therefore the Panims themselves praised and admired Aristides Phocion Lisander Valerius Publicola Fabricius Curius Quintus Cincinnatus Menencus Agrippa Paulus Aemilius and many other great persons which have carried themselves like good and vertuous people though they were very poore because they suffered Povertie with a great and constant courage and without straying any thing from vertue Yet so much there wanteth that Christian doctrine approveth this Povertie of begging that contrary it forbiddeth plainely that none bee suffered to beg And likewise the word of God witnesseth unto us That good men will not willinglie suffer their children to beg their bread for alwaies God assisteth and giveth them meanes Therefore Monkes called Mendicants have gone too far in praising extolling and exalting Povertie not taking it as it must be understoode by the word of God And so it is like they will soone repent that from the beginning they have made so deepe a profession of Povertie against which they have many times since pleaded kicked and spurned yet could never bee rid nor dispatched of it but alwaies have beene compelled by Popes and Parliaments alwaies to hould and observe it as a thing wherein lay and lyeth all the perfection of the orders But because this account and narration is pleasant to tyred and wearied readers I will a little discourse upon the warres of these Mendicant friers You must then know that these Mendicants at their first entrie into the world to renowne their names proposed to themselves straightly to follow the estate of perfection How the Mendicants pleaded against Povertie lost the cause that by their owne merits they might enter into Paradize and cause others to enter into favour of them and with their authoritie This estate of perfection they constituted in three points Chastitie Obedience and Povertie Of the two first points wee will not speake heere but onely of the last point which is Povertie Of this Povertie also they have made three kinds High Meane and Base High Povertie which the Franciscan Friers attribute unto themselves is that which hath nothing in this world neither in proper nor in common any way that is neither fields nor house nor possession nor rents nor pension nor beasts nor moveables nor apparrell nor bookes nor rights nor actions nor fruits nor any other thing in the world Behold here indeede a soveraigne pure and exceeding neere Povertie wherin there neither wanteth any thing neither is there any thing to be reprooved since it hath nothing at all The second kind which is for the Dominicans and Iacobins is a Meane Povertie which hath nothing particular or proper but only somethings in common as bookes apparrell and daily victuals The third and last kind which the Carmelites Augustines have retained for themselves is Base Povertie which may have proper common and in particular whatsoever is justly necessarie to life as apparrell bookes certaine pensions and some lands for helpe of their kitchin and necessitie of their living And it is good to note in those good brethren the Carmelites and Augustines how humble they shew themselves to bee contented with so base a kind of Povertie without any desire to mount higher as acknowledging themselves unworthie and incapable for to ascend into so high and superlative a degree These Mendicants then being obliged and restrained unto Povertie by a solemn vow which they make at their profession in their orders they are so annexed united and incorporated in it and with it that never after they could be never so little seperated or dismembred what diligence or labour soever they used to do it hereof they have found themselves much troubled and sorrowfull For howsoever gallant and goodly the Theorique of Povertie is yet in practise they have found it a little too difficile and hard And indeede if you consider more nigh the Theorique thereof especially of that high and soveraigne Povertie I know not whether you can finde any thing in the world more excellent or more admirable For they which make profession thereof in my opinion come something nigh an Angell like nature because the Angels have no need of the use of the earthly corruptible goods of this miserable world but onely take care of divine and spirituall things More also they which make profession of this high Povertie have this advauntage over the rich men which possesse the goods of this vale of miserie that they are not wrapped in so many mischeefes and travailes which accompanie those goods but are franke and free taking no care nor thought for ploughing manuring sowing reaping grape-gathering lopping of trees grafting eradicating cutting planting building selling buying or doing any other like things which concerne the affaires of the world From all these things they are free and exempted having nothing which hindereth them to be in a continuall contemplation and meditation of divine things to come in time unto a great and deepe wisedome yea to approch to the Angelicall nature of the Cherubins and Seraphins which have no other occupation than to contemplate and exalt the Divinitie But also if on the other side you consider the great difficulties in this so strict and straight use of Povertie you shall find it verily a sad and unpleasant thing For it is an approoved
respected and doubt honoured for as the Poet Euripides saith At the good accounted â—â— of Noble blood to bee Euri. in Hecu. But double is his honour whom wee vertuous doe see Heere will I ende these present discourses exhorting and praying the French Nobilitie and all other persons which love the publike good of France to marke and earnestly consider the points which above wee have handled against Machiavell For so may they know how wicked impious and detestable the doctrine of that most filthie Atheist is who hath left out no kind of wickednesse to build a tyrannie accomplished of all abhominable vices They which know this I beleeve will couragiouslâ—e employ themselves to drive away and banish from France Machiavell and all his writings and all such as maintaine and follow his doctrine and practise it in France to the ruine and desolation of the kingdome and of the poore people I could much more have amplified this discourse if I would have examined all the doctrine of Machiavell For hee handleth many other very detestable and strange things as the meanes to make conspirations and how they must bee executed as well with sword as with poyson and many other like matters But I abhorre to speake of so villanous and wicked things which are but too much knowne amongst men and have contented my selfe to handle the principall points of his doctrine which merit to bee discovered and brought to light I pray God our Father and Creator in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ our onely Saviour and Mediator that he will preserve his Church and his elected from the contagious and wicked doctrine of such godlesse and prophane men as are too common in the world and that he will not suffer them which are of his flock to bee tossed and troubled by a sort of turbulent and ignorant spirits But that he will grant us grace alwaies to persevere in his holy doctrine in the right way which he hath shewed us by his word and well to discerne and know abusive lying and malitious spirits to detest and flie them and continually to follow his truth which will teach us his feare and his commandements and by his grace will bring us unto eternall life So bee it FINIS THE INDEX OR TABLE OF Machiavels Maximes confuted in those discourses divided into three parts The Maximes of the first part doe handle such Counsell as a Prince should take A Princes good Counsell ought to proceed from his owne wisedome otherwise he cannot be well counselled Max. 1. The Prince to shun and not to bee circumvented of Flatterers ought to forbid his friends and Counsellors that they speake not to him nor counsell him any thing but only in those things whereof hee freely begins to speake or asketh their advice Max. 2. A Prince ought not to trust in Strangers Max. 3. The Maximes of the second part handling the Religion which a Prince ought to observe and be of A Prince above all things ought to wish and desire to bee esteemed Devout although he be not so indeed Max. 1. A Prince ought to sustaine and confirme that which is false in Religion if so be it turne to the favour thereof 2. The Paynims Religion holds and lifts up their hearts and makes them hardie to enterprise great things but the Christian Religion persuading to Humilitie humbleth and too much weakeneth their minds and so makes them more readie to be injured and preyed upon 3. 4. The great Doctors of the Christian Religion by a great ostentation and stiffenesse have sought to abolish the remembrance of all good letters and antiquitie 4. When men left the Paynim Religion they became altogether corrupted so that they neither beleeved in God nor the Divell Max. 5. The Romane Church is cause of all the calamities of Italie Max. 6. Moses could never have caused his lawes and ordinances to bee observed if force and armes had wanted 7. Moses usurped Iudea as the Gothes usurped a part of the empire 8. The Religion of Numa was the cheefe cause of Romes felicitie 9. A man is happy so long as Fortune agreeth to his nature humor 10. The Maximes of the third Part entreating of such Policie as a Prince ought to have That Warre is just which is necessary and those Armes reasonable when men can have no hope by any other way but by Armes Max. 1. To cause a Prince to withdraw his mind altogether from peace agreement with his adversarie he must commit and use some notable and outragious injurie against him Max. 2. A Prince in a conquered countrey must establish and place Colonies or Garrisons but most especially in the strongest places and to chase away the naturall and old inhabitants thereof Max. 3. A Prince in a countrey newly conquered must subvert and destroy all such as suffer great losse in that conquest and altogether root out the blood and race of such as before governed there 4. To be revenged of a citie or countrey without striking any blow they must be filled with wicked manners 5. It is follie to thinke with Princes and great Lords that new pleasures will cause them to forget old offences 6. A Prince ought to propound unto himselfe to imitate Caesar Borgia the sonne of Pope Alexander the sixt 7. A Prince need not care to be accounted Cruell if so be that hee can make himselfe to be obeyed thereby 8. It is better for a Prince to be feared than loved 9. A prince ought not to trust in the amitie of men 10. A prince which would have any man to die must seeke out some apparent colour thereof and then hee shall not bee blamed if so be that he leave his inheritance and goods unto his children 11. A prince ought to follow the nature of the Lyon and of the Fox yet not of the one without the other 12. Cruelty which tendeth and is done to a good end is not to be reprehended Max. 13. A Prince ought to exercise Crueltie all at once and to doe pleasures by little and little Max. 14. A vertuous Tyrant to maintaine his tyrannie ought to maintain partialities and factions amongst his subjects and to slay and take away such as love the Commonweale Max. 15. A Prince may as well be hated for his vertue as for his vices 16. A prince ought alwaies to nourish some enemie against himself to this end that when he hath oppressed him he may be accounted the more mightie and terrible 17. A prince ought not to feare to be perjured to deceive and dissemble for the deceiver alwayes finds some that are fit to be deceived 18. A Prince ought to know how to wind and turne mens minds that he may deceive and circumvent them 19. A Prince which as it were constrained useth Clemencie and Lenitie advaunceth his owne destruction 20. A wise prince ought not to keepe his Faith when the observation therof is hurtful unto him that the occasions for which he gave it be takeÌ„ away 21. Faith Clemencie and Liberalitie are vertues very domageable to a prince but it is good that of them he only have some similitude likenes 22. A Prince ought to have a turning and winding wit with art and practise made fit to be cruell and unfaithfull that he may shew himselfe such an one when there is need 23. A prince desirous to breake a peace promised sworn with his neighbor ought to move warre against his friend with whom he hath peace 24. A prince ought to have his mind disposed to turne after every wind and variation of Fortune that he may know to make use of a vice when need is 25. Illiberalitie is commendable in a prince and the reputation of an handicrafts man is a dishonour without evill will 26. A prince which will make a strait profession of a good man cannot long continue in the world amongst such an heap of naughty wicked people 27. Men cannot be altogether good nor altogether wicked neither can they perfectly use crueltie and violence 28. He that hath alwayes caried the countenance of a good man and would become wicked to obtain his desire ought to colour his change with some apparent reason 29. A prince in the time of peace maintaining discords and partialities amongst his subjects may the more easily use them at his pleasure 30. Civile seditions and dissentions are profitable and not to be blamed 31. The meanes to keepe subjects in peace and union and to hould them from rebellion is to keepe them alwayes poore 32. A Prince which feareth his subjects ought to build fortresses in his countrey to hold them in obedience 33. A Prince ought to commit to another those affaires which are subject to hatred and envie and reserve to himselfe such as depend upon his grace and favour 34. To administer good Iustice a Prince ought to establish a great number of Judges 35. Gentlemen which hold Castles and Jurisdictions are very great enemies of commonweales 36. The Nobility of France would overthrow the Estates of that kingdome if their Parliaments did not punish them and hould them in feare 37. FINIS