§ 1. That which pertains to every age—namely, that men should acknowledge the lawful magistracy in the Church—I directed, in my concluding work, against those who were declaiming their jubilees when I wrote these things, so that I might vindicate from false calumnies the true shepherd of all Christians, even of kings. This office also pertains to the political order, since our state is within the Church, and the Church within it.
I set this forth generally because the greatest part of their sermons is spent in invectives against the Pontiff, to such an extent that, if those curses were taken away, from many volumes there would result one small book. The subject of very many sermons is drawn from Daniel 11:31 and the following verses, and Revelation 12, 13, 14, and 17, so that they may impute to the Pontiff absolutely everything that Scripture has ever said against Antiochus and Antichrist. Thus Matthias Hoë in his third jubilee sermon, Baldwin Frederick, Wolfgang Franz, Erhard Lauterbach, Michael Müling, Vincent Schmuck, Paul Laurentius in two sermons, and John Pandocheus; there are also theses and declamations of others.
In these writings I have observed that all of them do three things. First, whatever has ever been wickedly done by any Pontiff they impute to the whole order, and exaggerate it, just as if someone attributed the crimes of Ahab or Manasseh to all kings and therefore took away the force of scepters, because many kings have obeyed their own passions more often than the laws. Second, whatever has ever been invented against Pontiffs by their enemies they set forth with an increment as though it were an oracle; but things spoken rather fervently in favor of the Pontiff they drag into calumny. Thus, when it is said that power has been given to the Pontiff on earth to absolve sins as God absolves them in heaven, and that the judgment of the Pontiff is also that of God, they immediately cry out that the Pontiff is equated with God, God is cast down from his throne and the Pontiff exalted, and that the Pontiff is established by us as God—although the particle ὡς, or “just as,” is a mark of similitude no less than of equality, since we teach nothing other than that the things which the Pontiff absolves or binds on earth by the use of lawful power are absolved or bound in heaven, and that Christ regards as ratified the sentence of his servant and Vicar.
Third, they attack the doctrine of the Pontiff. In this conflict I have observed three stratagems. The first is to impute by calumny to the Pontiff and Catholics those dogmas which we condemn and anathematize most expressly. The second is to traduce as new inventions of the Pontiff, monks, and Jesuits those things which the most ancient Church taught, for example concerning purgatory. Thus they say that purgatory is an invention of monks. But Zanchi, book 4, chapter 4, question 5, On the Nature of God, speaks as follows: “In truth, however, I have not yet been able to discover anything certain concerning the first point. Nevertheless, it is an ancient custom and doctrine. For Tertullian made mention of those prayers for the dead in his book On the Soldier’s Crown, page 449; but he plainly numbers it among those things which flowed from custom alone and were by no means drawn from the Scriptures. He writes concerning the same matter in the book On Monogamy, page 578. He likewise makes mention of offerings for the dead in the book Exhortation to Chastity, page 564. But he never teaches or intimates that those prayers or offerings were from the word of God or even from Apostolic tradition.”
Dionysius who is called the Areopagite, in the final chapter of the book Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and elsewhere; Cyprian, book 1, Epistle 3 and book 4, Epistle 5, and often elsewhere; Ambrose, volume 3, in the funeral oration on the death of Theodosius, likewise the other on the death of Valentinian, and in the oration on the death of his brother Satyrus; Chrysostom in the Liturgy and elsewhere; Augustine, volume 1, Confessions, book 9, chapters 12 and 13, asks God to forgive the sins of his deceased mother. Likewise, in On the Care to Be Taken for the Dead, chapter 4, he says that supplications for the spirits of the departed must not be omitted; likewise volume 4, in the eight questions to Dulcitius, question 2, and elsewhere.
I wished to present an example of cunning and at the same time unskilled malice. Zanchi and others who have sometimes read the ancients acknowledge that already in the time of Dionysius the Areopagite and Tertullian there was such a custom, and they cite Cyprian, Augustine, and other Fathers. Therefore, since these things would have had little force for stirring up hatred against the Pontiff, they omit them cunningly, yet at the same time foolishly and unskillfully. For even though they impose upon their own people and appear to be orators, they ought nevertheless to fear the conscience of the Christian world. Their third stratagem is to render Catholic dogmas hateful and to polish their own more horrible ones with gentle words.
§ 2. They render our doctrine hateful by a perverse interpretation. Many began doing this long ago, especially the anonymous buffoon who wrote against the Privileges of the Calvinists published by Father Martin Becanus. He was followed by the anonymous writer against Ungersdorf, and now by the jubilators, especially Zeaemann and the others who are accustomed to read nothing except the infamous little books of their own men. They read the words of the buffoon from Oppenheim, who falsely calls himself William of the Meadows, in his epistle: “That Pope can dispense against natural and Apostolic law. For Gratian’s Glossator writes this expressly at cause 15, question 6, chapter Auctoritatem; distinction 32, chapter Presbyter; distinction 34, chapter Lector.”
But this is a great calumny, for the Pontiff pronounces anathema upon all who teach that the Pontiff can dispense against natural law. Therefore it would be the fault of the Glossator, not of the Pontiff; moreover, that gloss is not present in the current canon law. Nor has any of these men seen the gloss: they hand on to others a lie received from one another. Nevertheless, there are certain things which canonists and jurists call matters of natural law because they accord with the law of nature, although they can be changed because they do not bind at every time and place. For example, it belongs to natural law to return another’s property; civil law transfers ownership by prescription. It is Apostolic law that a Bishop should not be a neophyte, should be the husband of one wife, that every man should pray and prophesy with his head uncovered, and a woman with hers covered. Yet we see that all sects, not Catholics alone, sometimes dispense in these matters. Some Glossator could have spoken with this meaning, and Pareus teaches, on 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, that dispensation can be made in these matters.
Next, the title of the canon repels the calumny; it is: “Apostolic authority renders wholly void unlawful oaths.” But to render unlawful oaths void is not contrary to natural law. Then there is the canon itself, which belongs not only to Pope Nicholas but also to the ancients: “Following the authority of our venerable predecessors”—at cause 15, question 6—“and expressly of the most blessed Pope and martyr Alexander, the fifth from blessed Peter, we absolve from all oaths and obligations of whatever kind by which they had bound themselves under compulsion through the violence of the impious; and we prohibited both the aforementioned Archbishop of Trier and his Provost, and all who at that time, having been taken captive, bound themselves to them in any manner, from observing those things. Nor, by the authority of God, the holy Apostles, and our predecessors, do we permit them consequently ever to suffer any infamy, calumny, or separation from their goods; as the Lord says through the Prophet: ‘Loose the bonds of impiety.’ Moreover, we give these commands to our aforementioned brother and to the sons and defenders of the Church of Trier: that with both the spiritual and the material sword they pursue those wicked men and their supporters until the possessions, or whatever ecclesiastical properties have been alienated or seized by this deed or by any agreement, are recalled intact.”
§ 3. Nor is the calumny more tolerable when they say that Panormitanus, in the final chapter On Divorces, says that the Pope can dispense against the New Testament. So says this buffoon; and the calumny possesses an appearance of truth because the words of Panormitanus are: “Second, note that the Pope, for a most weighty cause, could dispense against the New Testament.” But how these harsh-sounding words must be understood is to be learned from the additions, by which the reader is referred in the same place to chapters 13 and 14, Who Are Legitimate Sons. There he speaks as follows: “Nor does it stand in the way if it is said that the Pope can for a cause dispense in degrees prohibited by divine law, as certain men note in chapter Litteras, On the Restitution of the Despoiled; because that is true according to him by dispensing and legitimating the marriage from the present time, but not from the past, so that the children previously begotten are deemed legitimated.”
This dispensation is not in something which has simply been commanded in the New Testament, but it disposes concerning something which is not contrary to the New Testament. For the matter concerns things not altogether necessary, such as the fact that Ambrose, a neophyte, came to the episcopate contrary to the New Testament. Next, the matter is clear from the canon itself. Panormitanus explained that chapter in which Innocent III permits men recently converted to the faith, who had contracted marriage with the widow of a brother according to the law of Moses, on account of their weakness to continue using that marriage after baptism. Nevertheless, it would not be lawful for baptized men to contract such a marriage. He then adds: “Second, note that the Pope, for a most weighty cause, could dispense against the New Testament.” This is not to dispense concerning something written in the New Testament as something to be observed, but concerning some law of the Church which is observed in the New Testament; for there is not one iota in the New Testament by which a man is prohibited from marrying the widow of a deceased brother, and in the Old Testament there was even a law which commanded that marriage. He therefore dispensed not against the written New Testament, but against a law of the Church of the New Testament. Nor does it stand in the way that in Matthew 14:3 John says to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife”; for the matter there concerns the wife of a living brother, as Jerome, Bede, and others attest. Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius. But the mind of Panormitanus in the same place—namely, the final chapter On Divorces, book 4 of the Decretals, title 19—is clear, for he teaches that the Pope cannot dispense against divine laws.
The same buffoon, and from him the Innovators, also fight against the authority of the Pontiff with naked lies. “Bertachinus says the same,” he declares, “in his Repertory under the word ‘Pope.’” The jubilators allege the same thing. But in that repertory the precise contrary is found: “The Pope cannot dispense in things prohibited by the Old and New Testaments”; Antonius de Butrio and John Andrew in chapter Super, On Usury, Antonius de Prato in the said counsel 11, column—nor against the Gospel, nor divine law, distinction 20, and then 14, as also the gloss in chapter Litteras, On the Restitution of the Despoiled.
Thus Bertachinus accuses them of falsehood and cites authorities for the matter. There are countless other things: that we make the Pope a true God, and similar claims which, once uttered without shame by one man, are thereafter repeated by all.
Therefore in these matters we protest before God and men that injury is done to us; for they ἐν πλεονεξίᾳ πλαστοῖς λόγοις ὑμᾶς ἐμπορεύονται: in avarice they make merchandise of souls with fabricated speeches. Their life is a meditation upon deceit and a threshing-floor of falsehood.
Ψευδῶν ἄνακτες, μηχανορράφοι κακῶν ἑλικτά.
Kings of lies, builders of devices, wallowing-places of evils.
They reason with themselves thus:
Τὸ κέρδος ἡδὺ κἂν ἀπὸ ψευδῶν ἴῃ.
Gain is sweet, even if it comes from lies.
§ 4. Since, therefore, they fall away from ancient truth through great error, the things which they set forth must be considered. Now, because we are treating the matter generally, we protest only this: there will be no excuse for those who secede for these reasons, any more than there was for the ten tribes because they seceded from the temple at Jerusalem. For in no age have any defected from the Roman Pontiff except those who were heretics, whom our adversaries also condemn. Next, those who departed from us differ more among themselves than most of them differ from us: some have been carried to the east, others to the west.
But nothing is more astonishing among their errors than the fact that, already convicted, they have arrived at the point of counting the ancient martyrs among the Antichristians. Frederick Braubom did this most shamelessly in the Flaminian Flowers, and I refuted it in the book On the Increase of Heresies; but Wolfgang Franz discussed it most extensively in thesis 300 and the following theses:
301. The beginnings were indeed slight under Linus, Cletus, and Clement; and yet Linus, from the sacred ordinations which he held in the city, created eighteen presbyters and eleven Bishops, whom he would undoubtedly place in authority elsewhere; Cletus, at Peter’s command, as he said, reduced twenty-five presbyters to order; Clement wrote an epistle to other Churches which was not approved by all, as these things are read in Platina.
302. Anacletus, who followed, established that Clerics should not grow a beard or long hair; Evaristus, that an accusation by the people against a Bishop should not be received; and he created Bishops for different places. Alexander commanded that holy water mixed with salt, with sacred prayers interposed, should be kept both in temples and in chambers for putting demons to flight. He also wished water to be mixed with wine in the consecration of Christ’s blood; and commanded that the oblation should be made from unleavened and not, as previously, from leavened bread.
303. Sixtus I established that Bishops summoned to the Apostolic See—BEHOLD AND NOTE, READER: the Roman Bishops soon dared to command foreign teachers of other cities—should not be received by their own people when they returned unless they carried with them letters greeting the people—BEHOLD AND NOTE again, reader: thus the Roman Bishops, even amid persecutions, relying on the protection of other rulers, nevertheless insinuated themselves not only into foreign Bishops but also into Churches as their heads—and see the example in the life of Sixtus.
304. Telesphorus established that the fast should be observed for seven weeks before Easter. Pope Hyginus established that churches should not be dedicated, enlarged, or diminished without the judgment of the Metropolitan or Bishop. Pius I dedicated the baths of Novatus in the Vicus Patricius in honor of his sister, Saint Pudentiana. Anicetus established that a Bishop should not refer an accusation against his Metropolitan to any see other than the Apostolic See; likewise, that not all Bishops should be called Patriarchs. Soter established that no nun should touch the pall or place incense in the censer while the sacrifices were being performed.
305. Eleutherius, at the very beginning of his pontificate, immediately received a letter from Lucius, King of Britain, in which he was asked to receive him and his subjects into the number of the Christians. He therefore sent Fugatius and Damianus there to baptize the king and the people. Victor I, who followed him, excommunicated the Bishops of the East who refused to celebrate Easter on the appointed Sundays. Zephyrinus I established that a Bishop summoned to judgment by his Patriarch, Primate, or Metropolitan should not be condemned without Apostolic authority. Callistus I established that four fasts should be held in the four seasons of the year; he is said to have built a basilica in honor of the Blessed Virgin in the Transtiberine region. But we are unwilling to proceed further, because—to the extent that credit is to be given to the pontifical historians—from these claws it is easy to estimate the lion and to understand what is meant when it is said that in those times the mystery of iniquity was already at work.
§ 5. Behold, reader: Linus, Cletus, Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius I, Anicetus, Soter, Eleutherius, Victor I, Zephyrinus I, and Callistus I were already working the mystery of iniquity, because they did the things which the heretical man relates. And although they poured out their life for the glory of Christ, nevertheless to him they are Antichrists because they worked the mystery of iniquity; nor are they innocent because they were unable to ascend higher, but must be deemed Antichrists because they sought the seat of Antichrist—if we believe the heretic. But far be it from us to condemn as Antichristian the martyrs of the primitive Church, contemporaries of the Apostolic times. Let us rather rejoice that they lived in the same faith as ourselves, as the most ancient canon of the Mass has concerning Linus; Irenaeus, book 3, chapter 3; Jerome in the Catalogue; Eusebius, book 3 of the History, chapter 12; Epiphanius, heresy 27. Concerning Clement, those same authors testify. In Epistle 3 he prohibits the celebration of Masses without the Bishops’ permission. So many thousands of martyrs of the first century were in communion with him, whom the Innovators now call Antichristians. The epistles of Anacletus which are contained in the first volume of the Councils will show that he was of our faith. This Pontiff ought to be the most Antichristian of all, for in Epistle 3 he asserts the primacy from the institution of the Roman Church. “These things are true,” he says, and so forth.
Irenaeus, book 3, chapter 3; Epiphanius, heresy 27; Optatus, book 2 against Parmenian; and Augustine, Epistle 165, acknowledge Evaristus as a martyr of Christ, not as Antichrist.
Alexander, in the Epistle to the Orthodox in volume 1 of the Councils, and in On Consecration, distinction 2, canon In Sacramentorum, teaches that the body and blood are confected in the Eucharist.
Sixtus, among other things, teaches in volume 1 of the Councils that appeals from Bishops summoned to the Apostolic See are to be received.
Telesphorus, in the Epistle to All in volume 1 of the Councils and in On Consecration, distinction 1, canon Nocte sancta, commands that Masses be celebrated and the body of the Lord confected. He likewise says that the Lenten fast is to be observed for seven weeks before Easter and that one must abstain from meat, in the Epistle to All the Churches, distinction 4, canon Statuimus.
Hyginus says: “All basilicas ought to be dedicated with a Mass,” in volume 1 of the Councils and On Consecration, distinction 1, canon Omnes Basilicae.
Pius celebrates Masses in the house of his sister Euprepia and confects the blood of the Lord, as is evident from the epistle to Justus, Bishop of Vienne, and On Consecration, distinction 1, canon Si per neglegentiam. He likewise speaks concerning a consecrated cross in volume 1 of the Councils, and in cause 22, question 5, canon Romanam Ecclesiam, he says that the Roman Church is the head of all Churches.
The epistles and decrees of Anicetus which are contained in volume 1 of the Councils show that he was of the same faith as ourselves.
Soter established that if one priest, impeded by illness, does not complete the Mass, another should complete it, in volume 1 of the Councils.
Eleutherius says that final judgments concerning Bishops are reserved to the Roman Pontiff; his other decrees are Catholic. Saint Irenaeus came to him as a legate from the martyrs of Lyons. Victor says that judgment concerning Bishops is reserved to himself; he acted against the Quartodecimans.
Several decretal epistles of Zephyrinus are read in volume 1 of the Councils, by which he establishes our faith. He was an illustrious martyr in the year 203; Eusebius, book 5, chapter 27, and Optatus, book 2. Callistus was crowned with martyrdom in the year 226. He wrote concerning the fast of the four seasons, for previously it had been maintained by Apostolic tradition. But, as it appears, it had formerly been performed three times in the year, because they did not number that fast which fell during Lent as a fast of the four seasons.
Now I appeal to the conscience of all: those martyrs taught the same things on account of which we are condemned as Antichristians. Why, therefore, is their condition better than ours? For it is right that we should believe them rather, since they were both near to the Apostolic times and consecrated their faith with their own blood, and since no one either in that Church or in the following age accused them of errors. Why, therefore, do you depart from them? Why do you canonize the persecutors—Neros, Domitians, Trajans, Nervas, Hadrians, and Antonines—as though they were the judges of Antichristian Pontiffs and their avengers by lawful right?
§ 6. That condemnation of the martyrs suffices for our religion. We are unwilling to be separated from them; with them it is pleasing to go into prison and death, and indeed into your hatreds and insulting jubilees. If these things in them were venial and did not deprive them of the heavenly vision, why in us are they evils as great as you pretend them to be? O Christians, do not listen to the posthumous calumniators of Christian martyrs.
§ 7. But it is too little for them to be harsh toward the Martyrs: they spare neither the Apostles nor John the Baptist. It is horrible to hear what Wolfgang Franz dared to defend amid the exultant madness of the jubilees at the University of Wittenberg. In order to deny works of supererogation and to remove the treasury of indulgences from their midst, he accuses John the Baptist.
Thesis 191. “Furthermore, the following things are believed to augment works of supererogation: 1. the exceedingly austere life of John the Baptist, concerning which, among other things, it is said that we cannot show in the Scriptures where God commanded that austerity; 2. his repentance and newness of life, which he, who was never alienated from God, never needed.”
192. “As regards the history of the austerity of John the Baptist’s life, the question there is not about the fact, for we grant it because it is recounted by sacred Scripture, but about the right: whether John acted rightly in pursuing such austerity.”
193. “That John did not act rightly is evident from this: 1. because the ceremonial law of Moses had not yet been abrogated. That law admitted more foods than those alone which John ate. Hence Christ, sending the disciples to the Jews, says to them in Luke 10:7, ‘Eat whatever is set before you’—that is, whatever was not prohibited by the law of Moses. 2. Because Christ himself censures that Essene and likewise Pharisaic rigor in Matthew 9:16–17, Mark 2:21–22, and Luke 5:36–39, where he calls the Pharisaic doctrine, and also John’s doctrine concerning excessive fasts, an old garment and old wineskins. Before others, let Jacob Faber Stapulensis be read, who explains this passage most correctly in the introductory commentaries upon the four Gospels.”
194. “John the Baptist contracted that depraved custom, contrary to the law of God and then condemned by Christ, among the Essenes, since it is evident from historians that such were the customs of the Essenes: namely, they rejoiced in being remote from company, cultivators of retreats and solitude, in having a diet of herbs and fruits of trees, and in avoiding animal foods, just as the Pythagoreans had previously done.”
What wonder is it that they are enemies of martyrs and Pontiffs, when they so petulantly assail the forerunner of the Lord, than whom there is none greater among those born of women, praised so many times by Christ, who was a burning and shining lamp?
He concedes that the history is true, contrary to the exceedingly empty interpretations of other Lutherans; for some interpreted ἀκρίδας, “locusts,” as tender shoots of herbs or as crabs, a wilderness as a suburban villa, and a garment of camel’s hair as a Damascene toga. Thus, since they were unwilling to be like John, they made him like themselves; for they preferred to present John as relaxed amid luxuries rather than to disturb their own delights by his austerity.
But let us examine the arguments. The law of Moses admitted more foods than John ate; therefore John acted wrongly. In order that there may be the appearance of an argument, let the major premise be added: “Whoever does not eat all the foods which the law permits acts against the law.” Where, I ask, have those who argue thus left their mind? They are ignorant of the distinction between the command and the permission of a law. The Christian law permits to all men mullets, oysters, heathcocks, and whatever other foods there are; yet those who abstain from most of them do not sin. Is it not a virtue to have abstained from agreeable goods? In the royal array of tables is it not lawful for one, content with one or two kinds, to appease his hunger with a few things? But Christ said to the disciples in Luke 10:7, “Eat whatever is set before you.” Be it so: they used this power. John imposed upon himself a stricter law of abstinence. He did not therefore sin by renouncing his own right because the disciples acted rightly by using theirs. It was lawful for the Apostle Paul to live from the Gospel, just as it was for the other Apostles; but he preferred to set forth the Gospel without expense. He could live from the altar, nor was the mouth of him who threshed to be muzzled any more than those of the brethren of the Lord and Cephas; nevertheless, he preferred to die rather than have his glory made void.
But his statement that John’s fasting was censured by Christ is a calumny. In Matthew 9:16–17, Mark 2:21–22, and Luke 5:36–38, he does not call John’s fasts excessive, nor does he call them old wineskins or an old garment. Rather, he calls his own disciples recruits and weak, not yet hardened to endure new and weighty things. He therefore excuses his own; he does not accuse John. This is evident from the passage, for he says that it is not fitting for the sons of the wedding or bride-chamber to fast for as long as the bridegroom is with them; the time would come when they would fast, and their histories and epistles teach that they performed this. But if John’s fasts are called old wineskins and an old garment, what then is the new wineskin and the new garment? Next, if John’s fast was vicious, it was through ἐθελοθρησκείᾳ, self-imposed religion, badly chosen by himself; John was therefore not a true Teacher—especially according to the heretics, who compare ἐθελοθρησκείαν, self-imposed religion, to idolatry. Third, Christ himself praised John’s fasting. For after he had praised John in Matthew 11, from verse 7 through verse 18, he adds: “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’” He therefore says that generation was like children who say: “We piped for you and you did not dance; we lamented and you did not mourn.” Therefore, by so great an austerity of repentance, by which
eternal life was shown and not merely taught, they ought to have been roused to virtue; and because they were converted neither by John’s severity nor by the Lord’s kindness, he reproaches them for their contumacy.
But if that austerity of clothing and diet had been contrary to the law of Moses, the Jews would deservedly have said, “He has a demon,” as of one who violated the law of God. Yet both Lutherans and Calvinists acknowledge that the Jews most shamelessly and calumniously reproached both John and Christ. The academic of Wittenberg now succeeds them; in order to overthrow the Pope, he sets John the Baptist against Christ.
Finally he calls John an Essene, imbued with their customs and their disciple. The histories praise the Essenes exceedingly. The book of the Hebrews which they call Juchasin calls the Essenes Nazarenes, whom the Seventy customarily name ἡγιασμένους, “sanctified.” Their origin was from the Rechabites; some of them were Κοινόβιοι, living in community, others μονάζοντες, living alone, according to Josephus and others. Abraham Zacuto says that they possessed the best morals, hated gain, and avoided fornication; and Josephus says they were καταφρονητὰς τοῦ πλούτου, despisers of wealth. In book 18, chapter 2, he calls them βελτίστους δ’ ἄλλως ἄνδρας τὸν τρόπον: endowed with the best morals, celibate, farmers, and without luxuries such as anointing and ornament. As regards fate, which they believed in, it can possess a good meaning. If the Essenes were good and holy men, they did not teach John customs contrary to the law of God; if they were heretics, as the Innovators generally think, they must also make John their disciple and imitator a heretic, since his whole life would have been contrary to the divine law and condemned by Christ. Yet concerning him it was said: “And you, child, shall be called the Prophet of the Most High; for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge to the people unto the remission of their sins.”
I wished to give this general admonition lest anyone be moved by so many calumnies, which they convey by wagonloads full of lies, when he sees not only Pontiffs and the Clergy, but—what is impious—the ancient martyrs and their Churches accused of Antichristianism, and indeed Saint John the Baptist accused of impiety and error. We ask this of God: that we may never be praised by the mouth by which men so imprudently accuse such saints, nor by those who have departed no more from us than from the Baptist.
Nevertheless, not all feel equally bitterly concerning the Pontiff. In a speech in the public assembly on 9 November 1605, the King of Britain acknowledges many men of excellent virtue among Catholics. George Cassander, century 1, Epistle 21, concedes the Pope the primacy and the prerogative of oversight. Brocard concedes that there are pious and impious men in the papacy.