The apology of the Church of England, and an epistle to one Seignior Scipio…

2. WE do not now intend to bring to light all those Villainies which may much better be buried with them; it becomes neither our Religion nor our Modesty and Shamefacedness: and yet he that will needs be called the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and the Head of the Church, may easily consider with himself what those things are, which he hears, and sees, and suffers to be done at Rome; for we will go no further in giving an account what they are: Let him make use of his own Memory. Let him be pleased to consider that they are his own Canonists who have taught the People, that simple Fornication is no Sin; as if they had learned from the heathen Comedian, this Doctrine, that it is not a sin for a young Man to Whore. Let him consider they are his own again,¹ who have determined, that a Priest is not to be deposed for Fornication. Let him remember that Cardinal Campejus, Albertus Pighius, and many others o• his Lawyers, have taught, that the Priest wh• keeps a Concubine, lives much more chastely and holily than he who has a lawful Wife. I hope he hath not forgotten that there is at Rom• many thousands of public licensed Whores and that he levies upon them yearly, by way of Tax, thirty thousand Ducats. He can not forget surely that himself is a public Pimp, and from this base Profit, doth as dishonourably and wickedly increase his Revenues and Pleasures. Were all things well and Holy at Rome, when Pope Joan, a Woman of a ⟨p. 51⟩dissolute Life, was the Head of their Church, and when for two years she had in that Holy See prostituted her self to the Lust of others; at length, in a public Procession, in the sight of all the Cardinals and Bishops, in the open Street she brought forth a Child?

2. WE do not now intend to bring to light all those Villanies which may much better be buried with them; it becomes neither our Religion nor our Modesty and Shamefacedness: and yet he that will needs be call'd the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and the Head of the Church, may easily consider with himself what those things are, which he hears, and sees, and suffers to be done at Rome; for we will go no further in giving an account what they are: Let him make use of his own Memory. Let him be pleased to consider that they are his own Canonists who have taught the People, that simple Fornication is no Sin; as if they had learned from the heathen Comedian, this Doctrine, that it is not a sin for a young Man to Whore. Let him consider they are his own again,