The Pope confuted The holy and apostolic Church confuting the Pope. The first action.…The Pope confuted The holy and apostolique Church confuting the Pope. The first action.…

But whereof shall I here complain me first? Or against what shall I be able to exclaim sufficiently? O gross world, O blockish blindness of these days: I say not drowsy slumber of Princes: Undoubtedly it behooved us long sithens in our Princely authority, to have ransacked this lazy Lateran lubber, or •••her monstrous miscreant, and to have thrown him quit• ou• of our coasts, into the savage Wilderness, yea •••n ••to the cruel Cannibals, that so he that can not possibly be satisfied with mans flesh, may learn at the length amidst that flesh cormorant cruelty, some spark of humanity and courtesy. If we had thus done long heretofore, many thousands of innocent Martyrs had been preserved from that tragical tyranny. And yet having so merciless a slaughter of Christian blood, the infinite number whereof is not only extant in Histories, but also daily and hourly presented to our ears and eyes: This Antichrist notwithstanding liveth ••ill, and continueth amongest us, not so much by the benefit of the air that he taketh, as through our own default, and negligence: what said I? •ee liveth: nay rather he florisheth, he reigneth, he triumpheth: he is not only conversant and present in each places of our Palaces, but also present, and President of our Counsels: He• enacteth and commandeth ⟨image 8⟩what him listeth: finally he devoureth our people as his pray, and our selves he scorneth for do•trelles and fools. And because he can not with open attempts work our destruction, he pursueth us with covert and crafty underminings, beholding with his eyes already the murdering of every of us, whom his hart hath appointed to the sword: And even those hath he appointed whomsoever he understandeth to be more addicted too set forth the glory of Christ, then to uphold his pomp. The continual course whereof doeth evidently bewray him to be the undoubted Antichrist. Otherwise what may it be, that should so cruelly tease him to such beastly savageness, but that he feareth, least the glorious Sunshine of Christs renown, will dazzle and darken his counterfeit kingdom. For his monstrous mind being inflamed with intolerable desire of superiority, sithens it hath now advanced it self to that loftiness of estate, cannot easily suffer to be removed from that rotten claim of staring stateliness.