A Looking Glass for Princes and Peoples Delivered, Book 2 · Part 4 · Chapter 23
CHAP. XXIII. Of the second fruit of their folie: An exact inquirie of the matter.
THe second fruite of their foolishnesse, is an exact Inquirie bringeth knowledge.inquirie of the matter: When men saw their tyranny, they inquired the cause, and as Tertullian aEt inquirere accenditur quid sit in causa, &c. Tertul. ad Scap. cap. 5.speaketh of the Martyrs, when they know the trueth they follow it. For as hee speaketh in another place, who so studieth to vnderstand, bQui studu▪ erit intelligere, cogetur & credere. Id Apol cap. 18.shall bee forced to belieue. Their tyrannie is so grosse and manifest, that the world shall bee forced to see the thing they could not imagine. The more that Princes inquired, the more they found their owne innocencie and the tyrannie of the Pope. Moderate iniuries are tolerable, but extreme indignities put men to the highest degree of redresse, & so bring them neerer to a remeed, thā lesser wrongs. This was a meeting of their Inquisition: For their bloody inquisitours, inquire persons to destroy them: But this inquirie seeketh out the cause to follow the trueth.
If they had keep…d themselues in moderation, the world Their extremities bringeth their ruine.possiblie would hauehave bidden in their implicite Faith, in the point of iurisdiction, as well as in doctrine: But when they went to intolerable insolencies, men were forced to inquire in the state of the matter, as a man brangled in his Possession, searcheth all his writs. So Princes set Lawyers Divines, &c. to worke, to plead their cause at least by writ, for there was no place for iudiciall pleading their partie beeing their Iudge, and stopping all meanes of redresse by his tyrannie. Everie onset that the Popes made, The Popes onsets are his foiles.brought both a new search of the matter, & a new discovery of their shame: Divines & Politicks were divided amongst themselues, and their contraire disputs and treatises made the world see more in these deepes, than otherwise they could hauehave seene. Their strife with the two Henries gaue some light: the other with Fridericke Barbarossa gaue more: Even in these times of greatest tyrannie, God raised vp some good Patriots, to plead the cause of Princes, as well as hee had Witnesses of the truth: And though the Pope bare downe the one vnderunder the name of Hereticks, and the other vnderunder the name of politicke Shismaticks, yet their workes testifie, that God lette not Antichrists pride goe without a witnesse.
It is a wonder that so many durst write so plainelie in God provided pleaders for the authoritie of Princes.those Ages, and of that argument that was then tossed de potestate imperiali & Papali: Beside the Sorbone who proved loyall to their Princes: Many Divines else where made it their taske, as may bee seene in Otho Frisingensis, Lego & relego gest a Romanorum.I read and I …read over againe the doings of the Romane Bishops, &c. And the fruite of their reading (at least so many of them as were honest minded) was with Occam (b) Defende me gladio tuo & ego defendam te calam… meo O… camto implore the Emperours protection. Defend mee. O Emperour with thy Sword, and I shall defend thee with m… Penne; so dangerous a thing it was then to write the trueth. Goldastus cGoldast. Constitut. It. Politica. It. Monarchia It Replica.hath done good service to God, and authoritie (but hath given a blow to the Pope) in gathering together in great volumes these many Treatises, which were scattered in obscure corners: As a Physitian by seeing the Recepts and Medicine of a diseased Age, will▪ easelie know what hath beene the Epidemicke disease of the time: So a iudicious Reader will perceiue that Christendome was then in a burning fever by the Popes ambition. Such were then the Emperours best defences with Apologies▪ Protestations, &c. Their authoritie was broken, the Maiestie of the Impyre defaced, and their Sword so blunted, by Superstition in their people, that they could neither defend their right, nor revenge their wrong. And if wee consider exactlie the ingynes of these times, wee shall finde that God stirred vp for the defence ofBest spirits defended Princes. Princes the most godly, iudicious and learned men; but a rable of fleshlie flatterers defended the Pope. This great exact search of the matter was a second preparatiue to reformation: Irritation gaue the first by the Alienation ofSlavish spirits defend the Pope. Princes minds from the Pope: And this inquirie gaue the second, by the illumination of their mindes in the trueth.
It will befall him as to the Asse, who not content with his long eares, asked two hornes of Iupiter: And beeing importune in his pleading, hee got his eares cut off: And when the Persians were not content with their dominions in Asia, but incroached on Greece; they stirred vp Alexander to …ast them out both of Greece and Asia. So the Pope not content with his spirituall power, but vsurping on the temporalitie of Princes, will lose both powers together: For Princes and people see now more in that question, than in many Ages before.