Political Reflections UPON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE turks.  
NICOLAS Machiavelli: The King of SWEDEN'S Descent into GERMANY: The Conspiracy of PISO and VINDEX against NERO: The greatness and Corruption of the COURT of ROME: The Election of Pope LEO the XI: The Defection from the CHURCH of ROME: MARTIN LUTHER.  
By the Author of the late Advice to a Son.  
LONDON.  
Printed by J. G. for Thomas Robinson in Oxford. 1656.   

To the READER.  
SInce our blessed Saviour draws a Precedent for Prudence, from the unjust deportment of a wicked Steward; and recommends to his followers the subtlety of Serpents, with a no less Emphasis than the Innocency of Doves; I trust (in this Juncture when the press groans to be delivered of the burden she sustains from their more seditious and profane offspring, who desire to foment War; and Christian Magistrates reckon their Subjects Disobedience in the heaviest Item, they account for with God, in their solemn Humiliations;) I shall not be the worse esteemed by men judicious and moderate, for taking some choice Observations out of the Turkish Arcana, which garbelled & weighed according to the true balance of the Sanctuary, may not impossibly mind those at the Helm of Expedients more proper for Unity, than have yet been employed among Christians: where though Christ be owned under the greatest demonstration of self-denial, yet uncharitableness abounds, and less awful Obedience is given to God's Vicegerents, in Christian commonwealths, than the Apostle Paul did award to infidels. Nor doth the Church, set in the Firmament of Regality for the Luminary and direction of all Subjection due to our heavenly and earthly Guides, keep to her proper Sphere, if, from a Medium between us and our Maker, she becomes a stickler in things purely belonging to the Magistrate, our Obedience, like that of the Catholics, must still stagger betwixt two Supremes; It being impossible for the best or worst of governors to be longer in quiet, than she is pleased to permit them: And this apprehended by some (better fitted and resolved for the discovery of Errors, than able or willing to mend them) they conclude, all the mischiefs arising through the loud Fulminations, the spirit of Contention hath, or may have, darted out of the Pulpit, flow from the Riches and Splendour of the clergy, that upon a more serious account may be laid to the abuse and ill-admiration of their Office and Power, which duly regulated, is the wholsomest Flower in the Crown of Government: it out-reaching the ken of example to find a State happy, where the Priesthood is exposed to the people's contempt, or Religion suffered to be weighed at the common Beam; which must needs happen, where their Maintenance is scandalous, and their Persons despicable, or not vigorously protected by the hand of Authority; to whom they do, or at least might, bring Obedience, without putting it to the trouble of reward or punishment. Nor would the Laity so much grumble at the payment of Tithes, were they wise enough to weigh the great advantage they have through the church's dependence on their welfare, which would be quite lost, did their maintenance drop out of the immediate hand of the Prince, as it doth among the Turks; who are too well read in Policy, to break or dismember so useful an Engine, because it may or might, for want of Circumspection, have bruised the fingers of those it ought to preserve. But if this points at any prejudice in Church or State, I am resolved to remain no obstinate heretic, but to cast it at the feet of the same Authority, Providence hath set me under, and for whose sake I first took it up. And this I hope will satisfy the wise Reader; but for critical fools, the ordinary sort of bookworms, who, like Iron moles, discolour the sense and obliterate the natural meaning of Authors, by their spurious and tart Censures; esteeming nothing fit to pass current, that hath not descended from their Ancestors, whose foulest blots they paint over with fairer Glosses, than they can find colour for in the general Ignorance (some few Pens excepted) that did then bleer the understandings of Subjects, extending in the mean time the no less innocent, if not more useful modern endeavours upon the cruel rack of a severe Scrutiny, till some pretext is found for to ground detraction upon: This, I say, cannot discourage me from prosecuting what Conscience informs me may advance Settlement, who have long been taught, that the way lies to the Paradise of Peace, through the Purgatory of Censure, which all must expect to find their sails filled with, that steer contrary to the current of Antiquity, imagined, only by idle Dunces, to have pinned the Basket: For since this age hath the use of their platforms, and the same tools, it lies not in my Cap to apprehend, why it may not operate as well and wisely. To conclude, such as have, or do hereafter modestly prosecute a farther revelation of Knowledge, ought not to be discouraged, or unwillingly employ their Talents, as many do that come betrayed to the press, or led more by Friends Importunity, than their own Genius: For though their Contemporaries serve them as the Jews did the Prophets, yet when Death hath laid them out of the reach of Envy and personal Contempt, Posterity shall not only commiserate the Cruelty of that neglect they lay under in their life-time, but build Monuments to their immortal Fame.   

THE TURKISH POLICY: OR, OBSERVATIONS UPON THE Government of the TURKS.  
NNot to ascend the highest step of the Turkish pedigree, (whose primitive Actions, no less than those of the Goths, lie buried in the rubbish, their huge Vastation have formerly made through the Eastern Empire, and since in that of the West, upon the score of whose eternal reproach, they keep their royal Port in the imperial City:) I shall only observe the prudent Deportment of Mahumet (owned by all for their Founder) without taking more notice of his, or their extraction, then what may serve to illustrate the following discourse, projected rather to delineate the wise Track he hath chalked out to his successors, and what exact followers they have been of it (which few have done) than the Deeds themselves, usually found scored at the end of every street. Though, I believe, with great Partiality, and many Omissions, in relation to the Shame and Terror they have brought upon Christendom through the division of whose Princes they have attained this grandeur) the Fate of their achievements, who want Pens of their own to register their Stories: In which this Emparour, no less than his successors, have been still defective: Yet he that considers what hath followed, cannot take it for an hyperbole, to say, the main disference between Alexander, Caesar, and Mahumet consists in a Feather, or the Quill of a Goose.  
2. He had the happiness to set up under a most auspicious juncture; the greatest politicians then extant, being more employed in moulding an ecclesiastical Monarchy, and mending the Rents, the schismatics of those times had made in the Church, then in improving any temporal Power, or raising banks, that might stop such an inundation, as so great a snowball was likely to cause upon the face of that Earth, where ever it came to refund.  
3. His Followers were owners of no vaster Understandings, then might render them pliable to Labour and Discipline: Who being of a brutish and wild employment, did not only undergo the hardship of war, but were ready to yield all awful Obedience to such marks of Worship, or religions Observations, as he was pleased to impress upon their yetunsuborned imaginations: Not so easily obtained from acuter heads, who are apt to pretend a sufficiency in determining the truth or falsehood of that, Authority hath allotted for an unquestioned Creed: The more to be avoided by all new Legislators, because known so pernicious to established commonwealths and Monarchies, as the promoters of Sedition, are seldom found to take horse at any other block, than what they perceive the People aptest to stumble at, in relation to God's Worship. No Colony having been observed for to dilate itself, that held not at least so long constant to one Profession in Religion, till Time and success had estated them in a power able to resist any Enemy; by nothing easier brought about, than a confident Report of some Miracle, which once riveted into the Opinion of the People; by custom and Education, cannot after be removed, without the hazard of all. This made him profess a daily Commerce with Angels, and pretend, the terrible Fits incident to his Disease, as holy ecstasies, in which God did mind him of the way and means, how to lead his People. And according to this pattern, a Law was founded, so suitable to the highest Taste of human Sensuality, and obvious to a carnal apprehension, that it was swallowed by this Rabble for the undoubted and pure Will of God, and he looked upon for his most holy Prophet. To the advancement of which belief their Ignorance did mainly contribute, found by experience, the strongest assertor of what she confidently believes, though in itself never so improbable. And after some farther commerce had throughly estated their Consciences in this persuasion, they grew zealous, that is, affectionate, and desirous to propagate where ever they came, such opinions as their Governors had contracted them to, out of no higher sanctity at first, then to keep them entire and chaste in their worldly obedience.  
4. Neither were the proselytes of this new Prophet checked, in the earnestness of their pursuit after Empire, by the confluence of contrary Accidents, and the number of rubs the unsteady hand of so contingent a war, could not choose but cast daily in their way; but the more inflamed, as taking them rather for incitements to further cruelties towards others, than any stop to the unjust encroachments they made upon the Principalities of their Neighbours; looked upon by them as Enemies to God, and so, like the Canaanites, fit only to be eradicated, for the better ease and advantage of themselves. Or if any cross event was apprehended relating to them, they put it off as if it only concerned their remissness in the intended work of the Lord, which was to spoil others, and enrich themselves. This abates the wonder of their Victories, who have the Art to draw encouragement from the best or worst of successes: For through the clashing of these contrary events, Mahumet kindled such a blind zeal amongst their overheated Ignorance, as it consumed all before them, without the least consideration had of things Sacred or profane.  
5. And to preserve this child of his Ambition, from being stifled in the swaddling clothes, through an overlaying of Neighbours (who were called in prudence to the crushing of such designs, had they not been rendered deaf by the janglings between the Greek & Latin Churches) he gathers the chiefest ingredients of his Institutes out of the Gardens, both of the Jewish and Christian Religion: Leaving his Sectarists in gross, to their more loose and acceptable primitive heathenism; inserting few Novelties, but what respected his own person, which he doth not style a God, though he arrogates to himself a Supremacy over all his Prophets.  
6. Yet did he not only forbid the use of Images, as may be thought, in imitation of Moses (who by that bred such a hatred in the Jews against all Nations, as hath kept a considerable part of them from mingling to this day) but out of as deep a Reason of State, in relation to continuance: Since it is impossible, if a Nation once attains an universal prudence, but that the deceitful knack of such a carnal adoration must needs grow loathsome, or lie obvious to their reproof, that shall make it their full employment to find faults; and after an opportunity is easily gained, to foment a change, by discovering to the people absurdities in their Worship; which is better prevented in one directed, as his is, to the only invisible and omnipotent Creator, whose Nature and Power is so far remote from the weak apprehensions of men, as the sharpest reason is not able to batter a Faith built solely upon it.  
7. And by this prudent election, he hath so far prevailed against the corruption of Innovation (a Rust all other Professions have contracted in less time) as no considerable schism hath yet broke out amongst them: For that between the Turk and Persian, lies rather in the genealogy of their Prophet, than the body of the belief he first founded. At such time, lest Novelty and want of proof should detect him too apparently, he takes Abraham into his Party, whom he owns for the Father-of himself and his Followers; giving a no less honourable Character of Christ and his Mother, to please the Christians, then of Moses to amuse the Jews; yet hath no milder design, than the destruction of them both: And by this universal compliance, he rendered his detestable Errors more glib to the wide swallow of that Ignorance, the world did then gape withal; The cause his Doctrine was embraced by as unquestioned a belief, as that of the Jew or Christian, whom they look upon as owners of more improbable Opinions, than theirs, and less tending to the honour of that universal goodness, which respects the profit and well-being of his Creatures.  
8. In relation to whom the Turks Sabbath, no less than the Jews, was without doubt instituted, to give a comfortable relaxation to the poor Beast, as well as Slaves, whom Moses observed to lead a life in Egypt worse than death it self. Therefore he derives the Institution of the Sabbath, from the mouth of God, to be of no less antiquity than the Creation. And on this day men were suffered to do no labour, but to keep a holy rest unto the Lord: by which a Terror was struck into the contemners of the Law, and a great Love and mutual Confidence infused among Neighbours, no small promoters of Conquest; such standing closest in time of danger as are of nearest relations in Religion and Friendship. Besides, these weekly meetings, do much civilize a Nation, satisfying no less the minds of the zealous than they moderate the Passions of the Factious and Disobedient, by the great allay received from the solemn Devotion observable in their Priests, who use such humble prostrations, and catching Ceremonies, in the exercise of their Divine Rights (which yet admit of no scandal, because prosecuted in suit of no Representation, but to the imploring of the only omnipotent God, in whose service all things are to be employed) as such are terrified into an Obedience of the Law, out of a future fear, that could not else be restrained by a present secular danger, or after-hope; Imagining a number of possibilites to hide that from Men, which nothing is able to cover from the sight of God.  
9 Of such vast concernment is a grave and prudent Clergy to well-being, though of late much slighted among some sort of Christians, not so wise as to observe that the Eye for the most part, is caught before the heart; and that Austerity and Reverence in external Worship (if devested of all advantages else) cannot be denied to have a huge operation upon Obedience to the civil Magistrate. It being unlikely, that such as take Decency in Divine Worship for Idolatry, should not soon be worn out of Reverence to their governors, since the most destructive Parity begins always in the Church.  
10. No Law is more intent upon the Honour and Profit of Monarchy, than the Turks: For though a monk had a finger in the Pie, yet Mahumet was so skilful as to season it to his own palate. Neither were many Christian Princes less absolute at first, than he, till their Subjects by Money, Importunity, or arms had moderated their power, which we do not find this Nation ever went about: Servitude, by use, becoming a second nature: But, had their Ordinances, like ours, been voted by such a Composition of Estates, wherein the priesthood had made the principal Ingredient, for wisdom, if not Authority, it is very possible they might have more related to Religion; which, like the Indian figtree, is of so vast an extent, as it hath been able, not only to harbour an Host of Church men, but their Bag and Baggage, together with all the plunder they are able to make, by breaking the Hearts, and ransacking the more tender Consciences of Dying men; as is apparent in Rome, and might have been the same at Mecca, had he not prevented it by a choicer prudence, than our Emperors have formerly contributed to their affairs.  
11. Nor is it a contemptible Paradox to maintain, that the approach of ruin or Slavery to a Nation, is visible at first in a too Rich or Meager Face of the Church. That Causing a Consumption, by sucking too much from the Estates and Power of the laity; as This doth a fever, by putting all into a present hazard, under the destructive pretence of an overheated zeal. The same counsel being necessary to all Princes, in relation to Religion, and the guiders of it, as Phaeton is said to receive from his Father, when he undertook the conduct of the Horses of the sun; The Church being a Planet of that nature, that if it soar too high, it chokes virtue and Sanctity in the superfluous Ceremonies, she is apt to produce, which, like too much paint, adulterates the face of Truth: but if she be kept too low, it doth not only burn and consume all superfluous excrescencies, but Decency and Order; allays, without which we can have no Uniformity in a religious commerce: Since the Mysteries of our Salvation cannot be presented to us but in Earthen vessels, from whence, if they did not retain some tincture, we could not so naturally own them as relating to us: Nay, an indiscreet zeal doth so far participate of the qualities of the air overheated, that it hatcheth the Plagues of Rebellion, where ever it is found, pretending their Prince negligent in Religion, or too exorbitant in his affection to court Minions, or an infringer of the Law, and obstructer of Justice; weapons of Sedition, easily forged, if not found to lie ready before the Gates of the best of Kings; which subtle men snatch up, and put into the hands of such, as they have formerly intoxicated with a desire of Reformation, who seldom give over, till they meet their own ruin, or the States.  
12. If Mahumet exceeded the commission of Discretion, in swelling his Koran to so large a volume, (multiplicity of words breeding, in the same plenty, Ambiguities, among Divines as Lawyers) Yet he provided against this inconvenience, with as much caution as a by-past error is capable to admit, in prohibiting the Reading of it, to any but the Priests, and the Interpretation to all but the Mufty. For though the Jews were enjoined to score the commandments on the Walls, as they did wear them after written on their clothes; Yet none but the High Priest was suffered to enter into the Holy of Holies, or make any near approach into the innermost place of the Temple, from whence the Oracles did proceed.  
13. Neither is it a slight occasion of the Turkish unity, that their Koran lies patent to the Exposition of none but their own Pope: And that Petitions to God are frequenter made among them than Exhortations or Sermons to the People: Because by the first they are humbled, through the repetition of their sins and wants; and by the other, puffed up with the ostentation of their good parts: Or, (if it may pass in no worse sense than it is uttered) in Praying we beg something of God we need; in Preaching he seems to demand Obedience from us, which no reasonable creature will think he can want. To say truth, the frequency of Preaching (to avoid the tedious repetition of the same things) hath created such a Familiarity between us and our Maker, and a Feud against all that serve him not our way, as some take the boldness to predicate, He cannot do this or that, limiting his Mercy so far as to exclude from Salvation, not only the Turks, but all the rest of the world; so small a spot excepted, as a fly may cover in an ordinary Globe. do not these vain pleaders give the devil more than (I hope) is his due? contrary to the verdict passed by God himself, who saith, The Earth is the Lords, and all that therein is; without excepting those many and vast Territories, too happy, rich and fair, to be let out to the Prince of darkness, by the great and magnificent Landlord of the world.  
14. The whole scope of the more charitable Turkish Doctrine, concludes in these Ules; The Honour of God, Obedience to their Prince, mutual Love, Resolution in war, with an invincible Patience in bearing all terrestrial wants: The last, as a Hoop compassing the rest, by which they are rendered the rightest vessels against Sedition, and the aptest to retain all things necessary to compliance in Government.  
15. Yet, the more to strengthen this tye upon the Subject, all hope of perfect happiness in this world is suppressed, and their Imaginations wholly engaged on that which is to come: By this, the fear of lapsing into grosser Idolatry, or profounder atheism, is preventeds being bred only in expectation of misery here, and so more guilty, then sensible of that ridiculous folly David so much upbraids them with, that consume time in the service of Gods, that have neither Eyes to see, ears to hear, nor wills to help such as pray to them: For this stupidness once found in That we have been taught to make the Object of our worship, and joining forces with the Afflictions, that do ordinarily attend the Best, and the Blessings, not observed to balk the most Impious; This, I say, doth often hurry such as have had their hopes deluded, or adjourned beyond the extent of a small Faith, into reckless Infidelity, or which is worse, a low and despicable opinion of their Maker; avoided by the Mahometans, who look for no remoter causes of Afflictions, then what result from personal miscarriages, or the will of those in authority; assigning their Maker an higher employment, than the attending or accomplishing our earthly desires, which if attained, they might possibly hinder us from greater in Heaven, to which this world is but a troublesome and dark passage. Nor can the Turks prevarications, upon a most partial scrutiny, bear that stress of wickedness, the more seared consciences of some Christians do daily endure, manifest in the French Massacre; the foulness of which story hath not yet been matched by Mahumet, or any of his disciples, never found to have borne such bitter fruit.  
But not to insist upon the Equity or Reason of their Law, it gives them (as the Priests manage it) a satisfactory pretence, to esteem all ways decent and consonant to Religion, that are able or likely to enlarge their Empire: Not questioning the quarrel, no more than the future happiness of such souls, as have the Fate to expire in it. And if upbraided herewith, they desire the Pope to catechise his most Catholic Son, How he came by Portugal, Naples, Milan, Sicily &c. And what warrant he is able to produce, from the Avenger of blood, that might authorise him to shed that Ocean he let out in America, upon no more serious occasion, than Gold, & the Conversion of the people into slaves to dig it? Can there be a ranker Blasphemy offered against the Lord of Hosts, then to set up his Standard in so vast and sanguine a field of Ambition, and the cross of his Son in a greater Golgotha, then that wherein he was Crucified? And all this under pretence of Religion; as if God were less jealous of the honour of his Church, than the Priests were of their Temple, into the verge of which they would not admit the price of blood; much less than can the Judge of all things accept the persons of those that shed it.  
16. The awfulness the Turks bear to the Name of God is so great, that they dare not employ the paper wherein they find it written, to any base office, but leave it hid in a hole to the farther disposure of the Owners Providence; And therefore possibly not so likely as Christians (who observe no such decency) to call it to the witness of an untruth; much to the advantage of governors there, as it might be in Christendom, did custom or Law screw the people's minds up to as high an esteem of it. Neither would this lessen, but increase the benefit statesmen make by dispensing with its abuse, which is now so often and grossly practised, as it is apparent to the multitude, who are apter to follow the Example of their Kings, than the Doctrine of their Teachers; and might, (if any apparition of Justice or Religion were extant in their Governors) have their Passions, as the Turks, stirred up to approbation or dislike, proportionable to the more or less dismal relations their Priests read to them out of their Mahometan Legend; so much the more excusable, because the awe borne to these, though but Fictions, doth help to spare the more ungrateful Rod, the too frequent use of which, hath in all times produced more fear than Love.  
17. This proves, A false Religion doth contribute more to safety, than atheism, or a stupid neglect of all Worship; and that a Clergy is of excellent concernment, provided they keep close in their Doctrine, to Reason of State; not to be brought about, but through the mediation of their own Interest, by nothing so easily biased, as comfortable Livings, and severe Deaths or punishments, in case their exhortations go contrary to the grain of the civil Government; whose Administrators have not so much cause to complain of the churchmen for their recoiling, since, by their frequent setting them upon the people, they taught them at last to worry themselves: Their Tongue, like a Sword, being as well able to wound one side, as another, & moves according as it is inclined by profit or fear: Neither can any breach they have formerly made in the affairs of their Patrons, disparage the Calling, more than it doth a piece of Ordnance, that being lost through imprudence, and miscarriage, doth after batter down the house of her Founder; since all their Fulminations tend that way, to which the Hand that fills their Bellies is pleased to direct them, there being none easier warped than they, nor more violent assertors of what their own wisdom or the world's Folly hath given them leave to call Theirs, as were easily deducible from their frequent changings; which gives me the boldness to believe, that if all, which is without question the Churches, were restored, and the dignity of their tenants and Calling vindicated, the truly honest would comply with any Government, out of Conscience, and the rest batter contrary Parties in hope of Preferment.  
Such as look upon the Mahometan Profession, as of the grosser allay, because so far subservient to worldly Policy, that the Grandees and Priests, like jugglers, carry the coal of zeal only in their mouths, not being heated themselves with what they go about to inflame others; suffering their Threats and Promises to rise no higher, or fall no lower, then suits with the politic reaches of the Prince; may find other Courts standing in as profane a posture, especially that of Rome, (not unworthily looked upon for the Magazeen, from whence the rest of the world is supplied, with wisdom, shall I call it, or Deceit) where churchmen, like Burning-glasses, cast the rays of a celestial Fire into the Consciences of others, carrying in the mean time, themselves, a cold, Chrystaline, & Fragil Creed, towards what they endeavour to inform the People; taking upon them a public curè of souls, out of a no more religious respect, then to provide against their private wants; yet connived at here, as well as by all wise Princes else, because Law can promote no Good, nor prevent evil, but what is open to public cognisance; whereas Religion penetrates so low, as to erect a tribunal in every mind, where imagination sits, like a terrible Judge, pronouncing the charge she hath been taught from Power, custom, and Education; which, through the compunction of a tender Conscience, doth so rack the most intrinsic thoughts of all prepossessed with the dread of a future account, as they do not seldom confess themselves guilty of such heinous offences, as none else are able to accuse them for; expecting more ease from the sentence of the public Magistrate, than they can find in their private Consciences, which daily excruciate them with the terrors of Hell, and the loss of Heaven. To conclude, by the heat of Religion many virtues are hatched, and more Vices stifled in the shell.  
18. Yet little is observable in the Rites of Mahumet, that is Chargeable to perform, or grievous to the Nature of Man; Perhaps the cause why Sacrifice is not taken in, amongst the number of things borrowed from the Jews; as thinking it incongruous with a Divine Essence, to be appeased or delighted by the loss and blood of poor Creatures, incapable of the Will or Power to transgress; Though the inclination to Oppression, covetousness; and Cruelty, is no more a stranger to their natures, than ours; which proves Sin an effect of Law and constraint, rather than of Liberty, or Nature. But the People of God had a higher Prospect from these bloody Ceremonies, than the dark mist about Mahumet would suffer him, or any other out of the true Church to apprehend; else Wolves, and not Sheep, had furnished their Altars. Neither did this new State Founder believe, any merit could reside in a voluntary Maceration, or persecution of our Bodies, (as if the most merciful God, confessed to have prepared in future all celestial beatitudes for those that love him, should for the present so far divest that nature, as to delight to see us miserable) which makes me think, that the putting out of their Eyes before the tomb of their Prophet (now in use among them) to prevent the sight of any thing after, and the wearing of such huge and painful Kings in the most tender parts of their bodies, grew not from any Institute of his, but are rather Bastards of that Church, reputed for nothing more justly, the Whore of Babylon, then for burning her Proselytes with such exorbitant zeal, as the Anchorites and Monks are led by, when they Whip and Stigmatize themselves, out of hope to purchase Heaven: A lunacy superlative to theirs, who lend money in this world, upon human security, to be paid in the next by God himself; No ways suitable with this founder's Philosophy, who would have thought it less Blasphemy, with Plutarch, to acknowledge no God at all, then to imagine him owner of such Passions, as are unworthy, and below a Divine Essence.  
19 THe total Abstinence from Wine is the most material Sacrament of the Turks Obedience to Mahumet's Law. Now lest any should pass it as a less pertinent piece of Prudence, then really it is, I desire those that take more delight in condemning then acquitting the actions of Antiquity, to suspend their Judgements, till these Reasons are weighed.  
1. He was not so poor a Naturalist, as not to know, Wine effeminates, no less than enervates the body of Man; the cause, Samson's Mother, together with himself, abstained from it; otherwise he might (by the Witch, his Mistress) have been as easily charmed into drunkenness as Sleep For though it may, not unpossibly, conjure up a present furious Resolution, it was never yet famed for a friend to the Habit of valour.  
2. It is a sworn Enemy to Discipline; rendering the most obedient soldiers, during that Distemper, deaf to all necessary words of Command.  
3. Wine dries the brain by Nature, and besides, by Accident, informs the Understanding, through the Commerce and Familiarity it breeds with men of different Judgements: And so might have easily called up acuter Spirits, and caused a stricter Scrutiny into the Miracles, Life, and Procedure of their Legislater, than an infantine Power was able to correspond for: There being no humour so bad, but this strong liquour is able to make worse and inflame; by representing miscarriages in Commanders, and affronts from their fellows, which in a calmer temper could never have floated in so weak Imaginations: And thus led on by chimaeras, they, like Samson, snatch up the most improbable weapons, which they do, not seldom, employ in almost as miraculous Successes.  
4. The Transparency of drunkenness, able to conceal nothing to its own Shame; And Flexibility to all things, rather than Reason.  
5. Being yet in an itinerant condition, and so not likely to find Wine always at hand; it could not have lain in the power of any earthly thing, but a premeditated & religious Injunction, to have kept such an untutored Rabble within the compass of moderation, when ever they had met with it; Not seldom the Fate of Armies, who upon such disadvantages, have been all cut off by far inferior Powers, being themselves first overcome by drink.  
6. To end this Digression, in which more might be said; Wine could be no fit ingredient to mingle with the heat of the Country they marched in, and the labour they must needs encounter in the rough way, leading to so high designs.  
20. Not to presume to vie Instances with the people of the Jews, who besides the prudence of Moses, had the unerring Spirit of God, to direct them in all emergent occasions (which, by the way, renders their frequent Grumblings no less prodigious, then blasphemous) I find few Nations more constant to their founder's aphorisms, or that give less way to a refining, by the agitation of experiences, drawn from a confluence of differing events, than the Turk; for which he stands obliged to his own firm Constancy in Religion, and his Neighbours often variations, which have opened the gap to his most signal Conquests: It being impossible to shake this Tree of paradise, but to the prejudice of the Prince in possession, and benefit of such subtle Serpents as desire to Supplant him; therefore not to be done out of any wantoner instigation, than an absolute Necessity. For though the Change of an opinion that is ancient, may stop a leak for the present, it breeds such a worm, as doth cause a perpetual colic in the State: Apparent in France, where the Queen Mother fomented the Protestants, to maintain her Regency, and could never after be free from the danger of Civil War. This makes me wonder to find Toleration of Religion so common an Article in the Transactions of Princes; Since it no way suits with the complexion of Prudence to palliate a present defect by such a Recipe, as may breed for the future an incurable Disease.  
21. Yet because many customs pass current in the Minority of Power, would prove childish and defective in a more settled Condition, and after Posterity is swelled to so considerable a bulk, as that the most numerous part may be allowed to exchange battle-axes and Swords into Shares and Pickaxes; it could not be avoided by human Providence, but something should be wanting in relation to so vast an Empire, no less terrible to the ear then admirable to their Eyes, have seen it; A Fortune perhaps as far above the hopes of their first Founder, as it transcends the ordinary extent of the like endeavours. Therefore he deserves, in my opinion, more Commendation, for foreseeing so much, than blame, in omitting Provisions against such accidents, as none but a Prophet indeed could be ever able to presage: Many Carriages being necessary to the Sword, are superfluous, if not destructive, when the sceptre is obtained: The first intending the death of Enemies, but the latter the Preservation of Subjects and Friends.  
22. Whereupon his Successors finding that though the keys of the Church can hang nowhere so quietly, as at the Girdle of the Prince, (of which Moses is an unerring Example) yet to give a greater lustre to the beams of Religion (esteemed by all, if not quite corrupted, yet far less pure in Secular Vessels, than those set wholly apart for the worship of God;) And to have withal a favourable Umpire of a seeming more indifferent & sanctified allay, ready to compose any Discontents, that might be fomented between the civil Power and the Subject, either through others Ambition, or their own Oppression, not unlikely to result from so absolute a Jurisdiction; A Religious man, called the Mufty, is set up, whose Habit is Green, a colour none but the Kindred of Mahumet are suffered to wear, of which number he is always supposed to be one. Now the better to enable him to strike an awful Reverence into the People, in case a misled zeal should melt them into Divisions, or a colder Licence freeze them into a chill atheism, the Emperor honours the Mufty in public, with the highest reverence and most solemn attention, Denying him nothing he dare ask, No Malefactor being suffered to die, hath the fortune to see him or be seen by him as he passeth; The Prince placing him, upon all weighty occasions, next the Throne, where, by his public Gestures, he acts a lively and terrible dread of those Crackers, that contain no other sparks of a celestial fire, than what resides in true Reason of State: Which is the Art of Governing to the best advantage for Prince and People.  
And though this Circumcised Pope yields an infallible obedience to all the Emperor inspires him with, yet being rarely seen, the Generality reverence him, as if they apprehended something about him more than human. And let our new politician's practice what they please, Experience hath made it sufficiently manifest, that A too prostituted Familiarity breeds contempt, not only in things civil, but Divine. Now such as think the Prudence, absolutely necessary to the Conduct of human affairs, useless in those relating to Heaven, may be out; For since Miracles, and the audible voice of God is silent, nothing is so likely as a Sanctified Policy, to retain a competent Reverence for Religion, or maintain so much Probity, as is requisite in a general Commerce, to keep us from murdering one another, upon the instigation of covetousness and Revenge. Therefore the way for Prince and Priest to be thought more than men, is to do nothing unworthily, say nothing unproperly, nor wear any thing undecently.  
23. The Turk in this is happy, that the mufti his Pope, no less than Mecca his Rome, are within the reach of his power; so as he is not to seek for the Oracles of Religion out of his own Territories; denied by custom to the most considerable part of Europe, whose Princes are regulated by the Pope's Inspirations, not only in things concerning God, but what else may be fetched in, by his pastoral Crook (In Ordine ad Spiritualia.) And left this absurd proceeding should be exposed to a general Reformation, the Bishop of Rome tolerates all Incestuous Matches, and other base ad unjust actions, Princes desire to have indulged, for fear, like Hen. the 8. they should do it of themselves. The consideration of which makes them bear the heavy weight of so many ecclesiastics, who scarce acknowledge any obedience but to the Sea of Rome.  
24. Though the Turkish Court no less than the Common People, do afford the Gaudy plumage of Honour to the Mufty, the highest Bird in this earthly Paradise; yet if he but offers to tune his note contrary to the true Dialect of State, he is straight unperched: It having been long observable in this Empire, That neither Friends, Money, Sanctity, Love of People, former Desert, or any present need of the persons accurate Parts, were ever found Antidotes sufficient to expel the poison of the Emperor's Jealousy, who esteems no number of Lives (though never so innocent) equivalent with his safety, or the Nation's. Yet if this Holy man comes to his death by an unnatural Obstruction, the honour of his place is so far from receiving diminution by it, that his Body goes to the Grave with the least aspersion to his Fame; his Life being rather commended. So as his Successor mounts into his chair untainted by any Prejudice; which Christians contract to their Popes or Patriarchs, by the errors they discover after their Deaths; The cause, such as succeed are not in so great esteem, as their Offices require; Thought capable to be tainted with the same faults, their Predecessors were owners of: not here imagined, because the Mufty, how ill soever he deserved of Church or State, is registered among their Saints. In which appears the highest point of Policy, it being unlikely, any should question the truth of his Judgement, when he is in being, whose Actions they dare not arraign after he is dead. And for his removal, it passeth without the least notice given to, or taken by the Generality; who are otherways employed, either in caressing their plurality of Wives, or dispatching the business necessary to their Professions: Abominating us Christians for walking to no more profitable an end, then to talk of news, &c.  
25. This discourse of the Mufty's dispatch may afford some room, by the way, to inquire into the justice of Clandestine Deaths; a custom with the Mahometans, but such an one, as I hope never to see concocted into a more general practice among us: yet observing how our Chronicles lie overflowed with such vast Oceans of blood, spilled upon no more urgent and public necessity, than what relates to the ends and ambition of a single person, I will venture to say of it, and that only for the Meridian of Turkey, That a physician or a Felton may be cheaper employed, than an Army, and with less prejudice to the good of the Generality, Voted by all Right and Reason, the supreme Law, And for whose Salvation Innocency himself was willing to die. For where the sole power of Life and limb resides, as it doth here, in the breast of the Prince, under the warrant of an uninterrupted custom (the malice making the Murder, and not the blow) I cannot think it so heinous a Crime, that, in case a Subject hath justly forfeited his Life to the Safety or but the conveniency of the People, it should be taken the most advantageous way, to make the better compensation for the damage, it had or might have brought to the public. A private execution being esteemed here no more Murder, where the cause is just, than one made public is able to expiate the blood of an Innocent.  
I know, so many Inconveniences lie in the way of this custom, as it appears too unwieldy to be managed without danger by a single person, whose Judgement cannot be so clearly separated from passion, as merely to intend his country's preservation, without the mixture of some gall of revenge; A candour not unpossibly to be found in the State of Venice, by nothing so long preserved in being, as a custom they have sometimes to make away their greatest Senators upon no stronger evidence, then what mere Suspicion brings in against them; preferring rather the cutting off a limb, in which appears the first symptoms of Putrefaction, then to hazard the whole body by an incurable Gangrene. But whether the damage of this practice, exceeds the profit, or the benefit the danger of the consequence, cannot be easily resolved; Since Princes and statesmen carry often such pernicious humours, as they convert that into a daily practice, which, like David's eating the showbread, is only permitted in case of Necessity.  
26. Queen Elizabeth, in other things the best consulted Monarch that ever filled the English Throne, forfeited more good opinion and honour, in using the Hangman in the death of her sister Mary of Scotland, then if she had employed all the Mountebanks in Europe: For though Princes stand as near the Grave as other Mortals, in relation to Diseases, no less than Desert; Yet the hand of Justice cannot decently appear in their Executions, without debauching the Majesty of her own Power; Princes being esteemed the mouth of the Law. Now since the Council of England were too pious or hypocritical, to use the Fig in the sense of Italy, Spain, and other Nations, celebrated for more wisdom; they might under an higher repute of Sanctity have spared the Leaves, and not laid the fault on poor Davison, that did nothing but by Commission; an Apron that discovered more shame than it could possibly hide: All looking upon it, not only as the desire, but the act of the Queen and her Council, who by this public procedure dilated the reproach over the whole Nation. Now I appeal to all not indulgent to a Form of Justice, though never so ridiculous, who obligeth his Prisoner most, he that takes away the irksome Ceremonies, Dishonour and Expectation of Death, or he that accumulates them all on a Block? As if that which is Murder in a Chamber, were not only far greater, but more terrible on a Scaffold, where nothing but Death and her attendants appear.  
27. But to return to Turkey. It lies not out of the way of possibility, but that the Grand Signior, in regard of his abundance of Wives, may have two, or more Children at one and the same time: Therefore to break the neck of all Disputes, apt to result from contrary claims, the Emperor in fact strangles all the rest; a confessed tyrannical Tragedy, not to be heard without detestation; yet we fear too often acted among Christians, else the Line of the Catholic King, no less than that of France, and those smaller ones in Italy, might long since have choked their Felicity in a crowd of Rebellions: Neither need I end here, were it my design to exceed the Counterpane by home-born examples. Yet such a query may be seasonably made, If the good of All (as I said before) be the supreme. Law, & grounded upon that of Nature, whose chief business is to intend the preservation of the whole, without any nicer relation to particulars, then to place or remove them according as they suit or bring profit to the general occasions, a duty all are born to; why should such be blamed, as take the most probable ways to promote peace, & stop the postern gates of the Court, by which more dangerous wars enter, then do ordinarily proceed from the invasions of Strangers? And here, by the way, we may note, That republics have not such impulsive causes to shed innocent blood, as Kings: especially after that sluice is stopped, which the most for their preservation are forced to let run at first, till the State is reduced to an wholesome Parity, and the ambitious itch of all Pretenders cured.  
28. Nothing is penal by the laws of this Nation, but what is always, or, at least for the present, destructive to the well being of the Prince or People: By which the more active Youth (the strongest ingredient to compose an Army of) remain so fully satisfied with an uninterrupted licence to attain the farthest extent of their desires., as they apprehend no felicity beyond the Liberty they enjoy: And in such as Time and Weariness hath exchanged the humour of Lust, for one more Thriving, the privilege they have to exact on strangers, hinders their apprehensions from finding that loathsome taste, foreigners imagine to result from so absolute a Jurisdiction, as is, and hath been for many ages exercised by their Emperors over them. And thus the State is a double gainer; this Indulgence affording opportunity for all to lay out themselves to the advantage of their Country, either in getting Wealth, or soldiers to defend it.  
29. Contrary to the practice of Christians, that plant the Canons of their Law and arm the Messengers of Death and Damnation against the Gnats of juvenilelapses, but permit the weightier sins of Oppression, Schijme, and Ambition, which never leave boiling in sly heads, till they discover an opportunity, by which they may overflow the ancient Government in turning the people's eyes towards the Faults of their Prince, and stopping them with prejudice against his virtues: which may be done under the Scale of so secure a Caution, as the Actors are often upon the Stage, before those intended to be the subject of the Tragedy are able to take notice of it, especially in Nations glutted with Peace and plenty, or such as long to cast off an usurped Power; whereas it is possible, if Nature were not so hard curbed, and deprived of vent (by which sh● is not seldom carried through an impetuous Lust, out of the true road of Generation) such minds might be taken up with less destructive diversions; This desire being as hard to be appeased, as that of hunger or thirst: Neither can the defects daily observed to increase in our Issue, be justly imputed to any thing else, than the meager desires, so strict a confinement breeds in us, by which the spirits are so curdled and quelled, as they rarely produce any thing admirable for Strength or Stature, the highest perfections of Nature, and no less useful in Peace than war; so as the Names and Estates of the most illustrious Families this age affords, depend on Children our forefathers would hardly have christened; being fit for nothing but Learning; a Trade had never been so over-laid, but to find employment for these Changelings; who Fairy-like throw about firebrands in State and Church, upon the least apprehension of any want or superfluity in Ceremony or Decency. To conclude, Such as too rigidly expel by their forked laws, any natural desires, forget they will return, or break out into a worse mischief; No less than the more prudent Advice of Solomon, not to wring the nose of the People to void excrements, lest Blood should follow: For if Law did not outwrangle Nature, she might possibly be heard to plead, that our ordinary Marriages do rather tire then satisfy her desires. And though it may not be owned as a decent poesy for the Ringleaders to Sedition, yet the setting too high a Mulct upon the people's peccadillios, and dissents in Judgement, no way in their power to prevent, though possibly to dissemble, is the cause of a loathing of the present government, and a certain presage of ruin to all in Authority, if not the whole State, to be brought about under the pretence of zeal to Religion, and care of the people's Liberty; though the first is no more visible in the Church, than the latter is in the civil Administration of affairs; Far exceeding the Cheat of Ananias and Saphira, who gave a considerable part of what was their own, whilst these swallow all the primitive Charity had laid out in pious uses, belying so far the holy Spirit, as to pretend, the worst they can say or do, is dictated by it. And I wish Mahumet were only guilty in this, who made not his Religion alone, but his loathsome Disease a bawd to his Ambition & Rapine.  
30. Punishments in Turkey are more sharp than common, which doth rather stupefy than waken the humour to Rebellion; and are executed on open Malefactors, not the Darlings of the people, removing the latter upon occasion by a clancular procedure; As in case a madman (one of the prophets of their rabble for such they esteem so) should inveigh against Authority, they are far wiser than to stigmatize or whip them through the City (as we used to do) before the people, who take themselves not only concerned, but wounded in the general Liberty, through their sufferings; It being their nature to take hold of, and believe any evil report of such governors (at least) as are employed in Taxes, or any other ungrateful service, though most necessary for the use of the State: therefore in such cases, if they cannot tempt him over to their side, by Gold, they stop his mouth with something less cordial: and if his body be found, no diligence is omitted in the enquiring after some ruffian, on whom the people may be likely to father the murder; or the corpse not appearing, they pretend him rapt up into Heaven by the mediation of their great Prophet, at whose feet he sits pleading their cause, and guarding them from some Plague, they say, impends over them for their disobedience to the Emperor, the Vicegerent of God upon Earth. Nor doth this often times serve, but a solemn Fast is appointed, where the Statesmen do in show, and the Ignorant in pure zeal, afflict themselves; during which time, the news of some victory or happy accident, is brought and owned as the return of their Prayers, no less than a heavenly approbation given to the Actions of those in Power: Thus after the multitude have been sufficiently chastised for the courtier's faults, they become humble and quiet, submitting their backs to any burden, out of a fear of worse, and an opinion they have that it is consonant to the will of God.  
Yet in my judgement no wise Prince ought to tire out this remedy by a too often application, lest it should not only lose its virtue, but breed a worse Disease; an over heated zeal consuming not seldom the wrong end to that for which it was at first kindled, being apt to be driven by the contrary winds of Ambition and covetousness upon the Church, where the Buckets use to hang, likeliest to quench the flames of any other sedition, than what results from this wildfire; which for the most part melts the Lead, & consumes the foundation of the House of God, under pretence of his Service; a course that is so far from edification, that it makes all, not acquainted with the true knack of Ambition, hate to be reformed: Whose second remove is to the Court, where finding all things in a rotten condition, or at best obnoxious to be construed to a sense contrary to the prepossessed minds of the Major part; the whole fabric is consumed, to the very person of the Prince, out of whose ashes another ariseth that proves a Bird of the same feather, if not a worse: The Subjects returning home laden, for the generality, with no more benefit than the beggars, that in a drunken fit expose themselves to the danger of the Law, Wounds, Beating, and Death, only to burn the old Whipping-post; though daily experience informs them, they can neither be quiet or safe without it, which is the cause that in all places they set up a new one, when the fury of the distemper is over. Thus are Subjects no less vain, that do rebel, than governors mad, that provoke them to it.  
31. The Subjects in Turkey have nothing hereditary: All Honours, and places of profit, being peculiar to Desert, and determine with Life, without the least partiality showed to greatness of Birth, unless that it produceth more jealousy than favour, to have descended from a Father formerly in power. This hangs no less weight of Restraint on the Ambition of all in actual Administration of public affairs, than it adds Industry to such as have not yet attained to that height. By which a foul error in Europe is obviated, where men ascend to the highest places by the mediation of Friends and Money, rather than any advantage their worth brings to the commonwealth: It being most ordinary for Fools to be admitted into the Temples of Honour and Riches, whilst the choicest endowments of Art and Nature are suffered to pray, if not beg, without.  
32. The emperor's being here administrator to all dead men's Estates, forceth their Children to be solicitous after trades; as having none to rely on for a future maintenance, but themselves. And to add reputation to this laudable custom the Grand signior professeth some Art himself, in which he disdains not to consume his spare time. From whence accrues this benefit to the State, That Disbanded soldiers (the pest of Christian Nations) are one day in arms, the next at work in their Shops. Neither have they such confluence of Idle men, Lawyers, and Scholars, which among us make up a third of the people, and are, for the most part Contrivers and Fomenters of all the distractions found in Church and State: From whence results the severest of the Curses, God left to the choice of David; For the Plague and Famine terminate chiefly in Children and the weakest of men; whereas the Sword (like some Monsters recorded) makes the fairest Women and choicest Men, the object of its lust and fury, and therefore brings an incomparable infelicity wherever it reigns.  
33. This custom of Trade and independency on future hope religiously observed, doth cut the cords of such Vanities as draw Christians into Luxury, by a profuse expense in Furniture, and no less excess in Building, to a treble proportion of what the Owner needs, in relation to his particular Family; the burial of Timber and other rich Materials: much to the prejudice of Shipping, besides the Rent charge it puts upon the possessors Revenue to maintain it in repair.  
34. Neither is this people apt to follow the Eupopeain vanities of Horse-rases, Hunting, Hawking, and amorous Entertainments: Their plurality of Women quenching with more security in regard of Health, and less Charge, the thirst of Change ordinarily attending the tedious cohabitation with one.  
35. The Turks are very magnificent in public Buildings, especially such as relate to the service of God; none of the weakest effects of their teacher's sufficiency; who by working upon tender Consciences, are able (like ours) to make them so unnatural fools, as to skip their nearest Relations, and to design what they got, they know not how, in providing conveniencies for they know not whom: By which means such Baths and Moscos' are erected, as do increase the case of Travellers, no less than the zeal of those that make the purchase of Heaven the object of their endeavours; whilst Christians raze the names of Benefactors out of the foreheads of sumptuous Piles, suffering the ill-mingled ingredients of covetousness, and a burning desire of Change in Religion, to consume brave Monuments of Charity, by alienating the Lands, and melting the Lead of the Houses, which a more ancient and fervent zeal (though now indicted of Superstition) had soldered on: Therefore if I were worthy to give Advice to our public Spirits, they should hereafter assign their Legacies and Contribution towards the mending of Common ways, and erecting useful Bridges; more likely to carry their Names to eternity, than Chuches or other pious Foundations, apter to have their conveniency questioned by covetous and ungrateful Posterity; since earthly Paths are more trodden and better indulged, than those leading to heaven: Nothing being likely to continue long, that is able to bear the charge of its own ruin. Therefore those that accumulated these rich Donations, on the Church and Seminaries of Learning, instead of perpetuating their own fame, laid a foundation for the ruin of that, they only intended to preserve. It being unpossible that any human Institution should continue without so much show of Corruption (especially if rich & splendid) as may give a pretence for the rapine of those, who being inapprehensive of the sense of Honour and Religion, are instigated by Avaric● or a present necessity. This makes me, though with trembling presage, that the ruin of Christianity in Europe is not very far off: because the greatest Revenues of the Catholic Church are looked upon with more Envy than Religion; which once proclaimed corrupted, or unnecessary, she lies open to the plunder of all. Upon which consideration, the Pope hath not done imprudently to gather a Church in America, whether he may one day be forced to retire, whose zeal is likelier to be hotter than the Europeians, that have had theirs cooled with the winds of so many contrary Doctrines. Thus doth Religion run from one Meridian to another, thriving best at first; for after a long abode she so far sharpens and refines the spirits of men, as they are able to discover such Abuses and Errors, as may afford them a pretence to cut her own throat for what she possesses: when, God knows, it is not the Doctrine that is changed, but their Apprehensions: for if the heat of Zeal be misemployed, which is able to concoct any opinions into the nourishment of Religion, all things after will prove flat and nauseous. This might tempt Mahumet to stuff his Koran with such high and mystical expressions, to busy and amuse such as can taste no Doctrine, but what may bite the Conscience and perplex the Understanding.  
36. THough it be natural for Founders of Nations to enlarge their Confines, to the farthest extent, Prudence or Power is able to stretch them; I find the Institutes of none suit better with such a design, than those Mahumet and his more immediate Successors have followed: Yet to spare my own memory, no less than theirs (if any be) that will venture such a jewel as Time, in the surveying & purchase of so a wild a field of Observations.; I shall fix upon Three things they chiefly labour to promote: Out of which it will not only be easy to extract their First Principles, but deduce the subsequent materials employed in the edification of this vast Body; whose stride, though it extends not so far as Spain, yet it is more compact, and in that better able to remove, without danger of falling, any blocks that neighbour Princes may, out of jealousy cast in the way of its felicity: not to be paralleled in any part of the world, with which Profit or Curiosity hath made us familiar.  
37. The first lies in Obedience; which, being divided between Religion and Empire, asketh the more prudence to prevent danger; lest such as pretend to be the sole Heirs of God, do not cozen the Prince of his Birthright, under a popular discovery of a too rough hand in Government, or error in divine Worship, in which the poor claim no less ample a share than the rich; all being noted to fight with the greater animosity for the world to come, the less they find themselves possessed of in this: it appearing to them unsuitable with the goodness and Justice of a supreme Power, that the Creature should not somewhere meet with felicity. And to prevent all sinister misprisions incident to the Religion of the Prince (the gap with which the babes of Rebellion and Novelty are pampered) Though the Ecclesiastical and Civil Powers be both radically in the Grand signior; yet the pontifical Mufty hath Studied the Art to make the people believe, these two streams do flow, one from a less, and the other from a more Sanctified fountain: By which is gained this huge advantage, that the Emperor hath all he dislikes, condemned as it were out of the mouth of God, no less than what he likes, approved; It being upon no slighter penalty than Death, to refuse to acquiesce in any Sense, this holy man puts upon the Koran: nor can the Interpretation, State-reason requires this day, perplex one quite contrary, the next, if it may be more useful; because nothing is registered but what respects men; things relating to God being left free to the disposure of the Prince, who by the lips of the Mufty directs the knowledge of the people; himself like a weathercock pointing only that way which the breath of Policy blows; the inferior sort of Priests in the mean while screaming like Lapwings in the ears of the Rabble, lest they should observe the proceedings of the Court, which is the Nest wherein all their Grievances (as they call them) are hatched.  
38. Now, concerning Obedience in things merely civil, though the hand of the Priesthood be not out in all emergent cases, yet the Subject having no Vote in the proposal or consent to laws, all being solely at the will of the Prince, they have nothing but Patience to fly to, in the highest exactions he is pleased to impose; no Instrument appearing of any mutual Compact betwixt Him and the People, so as Life and Estate are merely arbitrary; better endured, because the Crown being Heir to all men, none can be made poorer than they were born; it being the nature of all, to esteem highest of their birthright, a term here not understood.  
39 The second thing promoted, is an impartial Parity throughout all his Dominions, in relation to everything but Desert; none appearing higher or lower than the rest, but according to the Plate he fills in the State; all Offices remaining wholly in the disposure of the Emperor: This removes the Subjects eyes from the Grandees, who might else be tempted to Faction, and fixeth them upon the Throne as their natural Object, and most auspicious to their Fortunes. Thus are the Rich humbled into thraldom out of fear, and the rest out of Hope; two reins, which whosoever hath the art to handle, may guide the world whither he please: This keeps the Turks chaste from Rebellion, either out of scorn to follow one of no more noble extraction than themselves, or through the baseness bred in them by receiving Injuries, not only from the legal Magistrate, but the soldier, whose Authority lies in his Sword, which the common people have as little warrant to wear, as skill to use; yet like the Head-prentice they execute the same Tyranny upon Strangers, their Masters are pleased to exercise over them: where terror is augmented, because Punishments are not confined either by Law or custom, though they oftener exceed then fall short of the merit of the cause. And here it cannot be observed without a serious reflection upon the force Imagination borrows from the religious reverence they bear to their Prince, that such as will contemn all dangers in his defence, are rarely found (till of late) in Arms against him, though provoked by the most heavy oppressions. Thus we see how far they may err, that make success the Touchstone of the truth of a Profession, or the peace it brings to a Nation; or the owner's Conscience; and experience can produce millions of Examples, that men only steeled with erroneous opinions have been no less daring upon fire and sword, than those marching under the target of truth.  
40. The third thing is Fortitude; endowed so richly by no Nation as the Turks, whose Emperor placeth all Offices in the Van of brave Actions; whilst his Priests and Prophets are no less diligent in mustering up the joys of Heaven in the rear: And for Cowards, they have not only Poverty & Reproach attending them in this world, but Hell and Damnation in the next. Thus by baiting all the ends of his Militia, he doth not only catch the covetous and ambitious, but those attached with the invincible humours of superstition & melancholy; By which, like oxen, they are rendered not only fit, but willing to endure both labour and Slaughter. Thus Phantaly but a weak shell in itself, yet if filled with Sulphureous zeal, & the opinion of Truth, and future happiness, confounds not only all that dare appear in opposition of it, but the very design (if capable of so much prudence and moderation as to project one) that she intended to promote. Therefore such as consider, how far the Turks Conquests are indulged by their Religion, have more cause to wonder, they are not masters of the whole world, then that they enjoy such a proportion thereof, as they do; where the Sisters and Daughters, of the Emperors own blood, are often given in marriage to reward that which was bravely ventured by the meanest soldier; whose Issue by custom can challenge no higher place in their uncles or grandsire's favour, than they are able to purchase by their own Desert, he owning none for Kindred, beyond such as are allied to virtue, wisdom, or some other quality that may render them useful to the State: Unlike the practice of Germany, where ten or more bear the Title of one Principality, having nothing to feed on but the air of Honour, looking like solitary and demolished Castles, quite destitute of Strength or Territory, the name of the place being only left to uphold them.  
41. In the pursuit of their Fortitude, I shall say something more of their proceedings in war: and first of Eunuchs, by many thought less propense to Valour, and therefore possibly to be noted in the Turks as a blemish, by such as do not warily observe, that Caution and Circumspection are no less, if not more, necessary in the general, and often times harder to be met with, than Daring and undaunted Resolution in the soldier; it being one thing to execute, another to direct. Therefore the Grand signior doth not seldom make eunuchs Commanders in chief, never Common soldiers; the fear, which is necessary in the first, being destructive in the latter; more Armies having perished for want of Moderation, than Valour, in the Head: Besides their incapacity of Children gives such caution for their Fidelity, as cannot be expected from one more virile; a perfect man being in a condition to gain honour and profit by the Change of Government, whereas one so mutilated is capable of little more than shame and loss. And because it is unlikely to cut the throat of this Empire with any sword but her own, such are employed with most discretion in these high places, as are least apt to rebel.  
42. The janissaries, on whom they fix the belief of Victory, are by a primitive Institution prohibited Marriage; yet lest this should make a gap in their felicity, the wives, and daughters of the less useful, especially those their Sword hath subdued, are without question subject to their desires. This wings their obedience in the performance of Commands, though pointing at never so remote Employments. For quite unshackled from the magnetical force of an affection to wife and children, by use made natural (which chains Christians, like fond Apes, to their own doors) every place is fancied their proper sphere; because it cannot afford courser meat, harder Lodging, or severer Discipline, than they have at home: Neither doth the want of Wives raise such cries as are made by the relics and Children of slain soldiers; the appeasing of which swells in other Nations to little less than would pay a small Army: This Emperor being heir as well to the Lives as Estates of his Subjects.  
43. They seldom grant Quarter till all is subdued: By this they prevent fighting twice with the same Adversary. Neither are they forward to exchange Prisoners, left in their abode with the Enemy, their affections should be warped towards any more moderate discipline, observable in those they oppose: And out of the like jealousy they seldom continue war long with the same Naton; Change not only preventing all Contagion, that may arise from Commerce with worse-ordered people, but affording the soldier at least a seeming delight, in variety. And in farther relation to Quarter, a Prince rich in Subjects doth rather spoil then mend his Market by such kind of barterring, by rendering Enemies the bolder, as being readier to dispense with the danger of Imprisonment than Death: Neither are any miraculous effects of despair much to be feared, where there is room enough left to evade: This humour being as single and rare, as the Phoenix, and not to be generated but out of the ashes of hope. And he that considers, that the Turk is not of so poor an allay, as some Princes, which are undone by a victory, if it costs too dear, may see his design in a great part satisfied by the Employment and loss of his soldiers; the too great increase of such Spirits being all he hath reason to fear. This makes war (an Art in other places) an absolute Nature and necessity here.  
44. He is not yet so fond of Honour, as to lay out his endeavours in the purchase of places not able to pay for their own chains; A charge the Catholic King is never like to abate so long as he is Master of Naples, Milan, &c. that cost more to keep, than the profit made of them can compense; the like may be yet said of Ireland, &c.  
45. Their Ordnance, found the largest in the known world, are carried into the field in the Common soldier's Pockets.  
46. The general Food of the Turks, both in City and Camp, is Rice & Water; Their most dainty addition being but a Hen, or some small lump of Flesh. This makes them pursue victory over desolate Places, and starve such Armies as presume to follow them, who are as certainly overwhelmed with an Ocean of Necessities, as the Egyptians were by the Red Sea.  
47. Their Expeditions are not ordinarily undertaken, but in Summer; By which many great dangers are prevented, less-advised Princes do daily cope withal, in meeting with Contingences that arise from Want and bad Weather, harder to be vanquished than the enemy himself. For though their Numbers be great; yet the little, Use hath taught them to be content withal, is easily met with at that Season, and renders them so impregnable against what we call Fortune, as she may possibly bend her Bow, but is not able to distress them by the strongest arrows her Quiver affords. Besides the Echo the Report of the Emperor's strength makes in the hollow hearts, those Princes, it concerns, carry one to the other, is not only Harbinger, but in a great part, Operator of his Victories; when Christians march but with part of their strength, leaving the rest to follow in the nature of a Reserve, (as if there were hope a paucity should prevail when the gross is beaten, who, if joined, might possibly have warranted Success) and do by this not only lessen the repute of their Power (of no small consequence in the Art of War) but discourage any other from joining with them, who upon the sound of an invincible Army would prick-up their Ears.  
48. If a Shock be given to the Emperor's Forces, he stays not long enough in that place to receive another, but returns home without tempting his Fortune farther that Summer; Wisely concluding it much unlikely (as in truth it is) for a disheartened Army to perform what she could not bring about when the soldier was in full plight. Neither can the certain cause of an Overthrow be easily penetrated into; and till that be throughly surveyed, on Prince may in discretion hazard the chance of a second battle, though the Commanders appear never so confident of good success; it suiting with their interest both in honour and safety, to venture all, rather than come out of the Field with so great a reproach; Considerations below a Superlative power, to whom Security ought to be more dear, than any thing that carries the countenance of greater loss than gain; It not being impossible but that the former disgrace might arise from some Treachery in the principal Officers; Therefore it is good Policy to examine every Card in the Pack, before the dealing of a new Game, especially upon a fleshed party: Yet with this caution, that many things must be put to the venture by the Founder of an Empire, which suit not with the Prudence of one already established; For Repute, far more necessary than Safety to the first, is below it many degrees in the second; since he that holds but part of a Cudgel in his hand, may retreat in quiet, but he that hath quite lost it shall be bit by the same dogs that gave way to, or fawned upon him before his force was spent.  
49 The Grand signior (after augmentation of the Empire) is in nothing more studious than of means to Employ the Superfluous quantity of soldiers, his vast estate produceth. By this making those instrumental to the propagation of honour and dominion, that in such narrow yet fruitful Cockpits as England, breed nothing but Sedition; and for want of ease and plenty, strive like Jacob and his Brother for more room; it being possible for evil government to convert the blessing of Increase and multiply into as heavy a curse, as ever yet fell from the mouth of God: Therefore a too zealous prosecution of Peace (which some Princes, not unwise in their single judgement called kingcraft) is a no less vain, than destructive Art; and so unsuitable to the good and safety of any government, that it hatcheth Plagues, or which is more contagious to a State, Civil war: Neither can this pleurisy be easier cured, or the Spirits of Rebellion better evaporaed, then by openning the people's veins in some foreign employment.  
50. The Turkey cavalry are seldom in evil plight, because their Horses are still under the owner's eye, who for the most part do serve upon them, and have to that end large proportions of land allowed them, with other immunities not common to the people, to whom they are both a curb and a protection: And between these and the Foot such a feud is bred, either by custom, Nature, or Art, that it is reported, the Horse will (if unprevented) burn their litter, lest the Infantry should employ it to their better accommodation: Now though this may look like a prejudice in the field it secures all fear of combination at home. Neither is it a slight addition to security, that the greatest part of this Militia consists of such as were selected out of Children, paid for tribute by conquered Nations, who composed of several airs, cannot associate with that ease as Armies made up of one Language; which like the Swiss, do not seldom call for Gbelt when they have the Enemy in view.  
51. Their strength lies in the Field, and not in Fortresses, looked upon as nurseries of Rebellion, especially in so absolute a Tyranny, where it is more common for the Emperor to send for the Head of a Bashaw, then to be denied; A power that would be buried in stronger Holds, out of which few would come to such entertainment, as is given to the Grandees upon the least invitation of jealousy. Not to beat more upon this Argument, long since driven up to the head by the best of Judgements, That fortified places suit the affairs of weak Princes, better than those of greater strength, &c. he that hath men in abundance needs them no more, than those of narrower confines and less populous are able to subsist without them.  
52 They make not Religion the cause, or at least proclaim it not for the principal Motto of a war; which wakens the attentions and invokes the assistance of all the contrary profession; the poorest man taking himself so far interested in the vindication of his Faith, that if he hath nothing else to venture, he will account it sacrilege to deny his life: But no sound of that being heard, the voice of hope and fear drowns that of danger and concernment, in the prejudice and hatred they bear to their Neighbours; Fathering all misfortune that falls to them upon divine vengeance, in opposition of which they dare not engage; no more than most Princes are willing to part with their Gold till it is too late; like the wretched inhabitants of Constantinople, who chose rather to lose all in an entire sum, than to break it for the preservation of themselves & their Country. And if any thing could have tempted Christians to the rescue of their own interest in the costody of others, it would have been then, when this imperial City was in such danger. But the moderation of Caesar's power was so grateful a Spectacle for the present, as it dazzled their apprehensions in relation to any future inconveniences; yet when this key of Europe was lost, those that before were quiet, if not contented Spectators, began to mistrust their own doors, and bewail their ignorance, in not foreseeing that the effects of such a neighbourhood was not so easily to be resisted, as the Siege (which was the cause) might have been raised, had there been a cordial conjunction amongst those tied in policy to have kept him farther off. Thus by presuming more on the strength of others, than there is cause for, most states at last come to be distressed themselves.  
53. Their Militia is observed to be more daring in their Christian expeditions, than those undertaken against the Persian; a people looked upon as too near of kin to them in Religion, to warrant their Murdering: The same sin committed by Princes in gross, which private persons do by retail, yet are punished for it in this world, where the other are commended; though the people l describe are too wise and affectionate towards the more substantial part of their Creed, to prosecute those of their own profession to the farthest extent of their power, out of no more serious consideration, then whether their own, or the Persian Priests delude the people with the greatest show of Truth, especially both owning one and the same supreme juggler, Mahumet. In this exceeding the prudence, if not the piety of Christians, who make the sword an Umpire in the smallest differences of Opinion; as if success, (found as great an assertor of the designs of these infidels, as ever it hath yet appeared in the favour of Saints) could be able to bear so great a stress, as the weight of Religion, on which depends Salvation, not possibly to be brought about by the wicked Engines, daily employed by Princes and men in power, to keep Victory fastened to their Tentdoors: It being the Sufferings, not the Valour of our Champion CHRIST, that can enrol us in the Heavenly Host: For though weda e not give success to Fortune, any more than we are able to wrest her out of the hand of God; yet we find by experience, that the wheels of her Chariot are too weak, dirty, and unsteady, for Truth to triumph in, much less to be made captive to any others Interpretation than her own.  
54 And though the paint of Religion is the ordinary charm that raiseth the impetuous spirits of the people into storms (by which they can sooner destroy others than save themselves; no reparations being to be procured but out of their own purses, who may far easier change their Masters, then find better) yet is blood very unsuitable to the taste of true Religion, which participates more of the Lamb, than the Lion, having been ever readier to suffer wrong, then do it; till the Priests of old, as some think, first, for the Prince's sake, and after for their own, had, not only taught her the art of juggling, but made her so tetchey by the corroding doctrines they instiled into men's consciences, upon the least worldly occasion, that brought their Honour or Profit under question; far repugnant to the first intent of Religion, which was to set a bar against strife, and all other unnatural desires, men, without the awe of God, are apt to fall into; Oppression being a general mischief, all are liable to, either in childhood or old age: This brought Government into use among such as had felt the heavy experiment of Anarchy; to avoid which nothing contributes more than Unity in Religion, and where that cannot be compassed without much strife, a Liberty to profess what opinions men please, provided they be not repugnant to the general welfare.  
54. Wherefore Mahumet and his successors, the better to gain the love of the people to Religion, tempered it with so much moderation, as it rather inclines to Hope than fear; wisely foreseeing, that nothing makes Subjects recoil more from their Obedience, than when they are loaded with a conceit that their governors lead them in the way to Hell. This gives me occasion to think, that the goblins armed by the Catholics with so much terror, may possibly like the Elephants of Pyrrhus fall foul upon themselves, and bring their Religion into a low contempt, through an apparent detection, or a panic fear; not so likely to attach the Creed of the Turks, who have no painting to communicate any thing subject to gather so much dross, as might inform the people, they are but the effects of human Art; nor Priests that dare be so bold as to put a greater Excise upon the sins of the people, or the price of Heaven, than stands with the conveniency or Reason of State. Thus are the Turkish soldiers bred in no less Obedience than Valour; which are indeed the most saving Articles of their belief; and though undervalued by, us that expect after death a less carnal Heaven; yet nothing causeth their Unity more, or is a greater provocation to augmentation of Empire, than the conformity held by their Priests in the inculcation of their Doctrine, not perplexing their consciences with useless terrors or hard questions; making no sins so damnable as Cowardice and Disobedience to the Commands of their Leaders; eyeing Christians with a high disdain, for casting so many doubts, and bushing the way to Heaven with Purgatory and other bugbears, which they place in the dark Entry, all are to pass between this world and the next: Though a blind man may see, it is not consonant either to the belief of Prince or Priest: And these chimaeras are thought, by the Mahometans, to intimidate soldiers, by making them Atheists, and so in hope of no better; or superstitious, which keeps them still in expectation of a worse: This people being no less hardened with Discipline, against the pleasures of this, than assured by Doctrine, they shall enjoy the same and greater in the world to come: according to an ordinary saying among them: That if Christians carried the same opnins concerning Heaven in their Hearts, as are everywhere found in their Books, they would not be so afraid of Death the only way thither.  
56. The Turks esteem Fate inexorable; which steels their foreheads no less against the sharpest danger, than it smooths them towards the severest Discipline; yet in the midst of this belief, admit a necessary use of Prayer: As if importunity could be any way prevalent, where an unchangeable Resolution is acknowledged. It cannot be denied, there is a wide room left for giving Thanks, and praising God, for disposing things so much to our advantage; but this perhaps cannot so seasonably be done till his will be revealed.  
57 Images, reverenced in Christian Churches, bar the doors against both Turk and Jew; who count us worse than cannibals for eating our God, as they say we do in the Eucharist: a scandal we owe to the Court of Rome.  
58. Notwithstanding the incomparable strength of this Lion, you may find all his Treaties lined with the fur of a Fox, not tying himself up so straight by Promise or Obligation, but that he hath still a muse open to break through upon any great advantage: And in this he is not a little beholding to the manner of his style, always fuller of hyperbolical Civilities than real Assurances: yet rather than leave his Repute under the reproach of a broken Faith, he lays the fault upon the Mistake of some Minister of State, by whose blood he expungeth all stains of Dishonour, not leaving them legible by any of his own, but such as have learned to decipher the Character of Princes, who are but few in this well composed Government, and those comfortably employed in public Service, or decently laid by, for prevention of mischief: It remaining past peradventure, That such as have Heads apt for Counsel, may, upon a Discontent, find Hearts as apt for Rebellion.  
59 Though this Monarch, if he stands right in his Subjects esteem, is not very solicitous after Repute from Strangers; yet, by reason of his vast Power, he is not often necessitated to tread such base paths, as our weaker Princes are forced to walk in, that have for the most part nothing but Shifts to subsist by; which like Mines under the walls of towns, bring more prejudice than gain, if they come to be discovered by the contrary party; from which it is not easy to conceal them, if once they are flown out of the bosom that hatched them: such folly and falsehood is bound up in the hearts of ambassadors. Besides the frequent Perjury of Princes hath so vilified the pri●● of oaths, as they serve for little more than Ceremony of State, and to bait traps for their poor Subjects and other weak and ill-advised Strangers. Which may give an occasion for an inquiry, that since all men cannot agree, Whether a Toleration of their several Religions may not be with more Charity admitted, than every one persecuted, as we find they are in one place or other? And because one God is universally owned, all Protestations should be taken under that single Name, without any other addition; many bearing an awful reverence to That, who look upon the rest as products of Policy, and therefore leave room for such mental reservations as the Priests, no less than the Grandees have too long abused the world withal. And till a reverence, still begun at the Head, be real, or unapprehensibly feigned, it is folly to expect performance of Oaths in the Members. This arraigns all Princes of madness, that rest secure upon the Fidelity of their Subjects, after they have forfeited their own by illegal and exorbitant Taxes. Nor is Perjury found so frequently amongst those esteemed Infidels, as our dry Professors, that have Religion still in their mouths, and the Bible in their Eye; Not that a practice of holy Duties can possibly be more the reason of falsehood in the one, than profaneness, of Truth in the other; But having made themselves more familiar with the Mercy, than Justice of God, and presuming upon the certainty of their own Salvation, and Damnation of others, for which they have no better warrant than the voice of a Spirit, conjured up only in their Imaginations; the more to be suspected, because it befriends no other interest but their own, they think to make God amends some other way; whereas a poor Sinner, that hath once been hunted home with the fierce conflicts of a wearied Conscience (sharper far than the Humiliations, these outward Professors proportion to themselves (dares not venture on so dear an Impiety, out of hope to digest it the next Fast. And if I am not much mistaken, the Turks bear a more awful reverence to oaths, than Christians●or are they found to allay it with the poisonous mixture of equivocation, though the Jews that live among them are more indifferent what they attest. A sad thing, that such as were formerly, and those that are now the people of God, should exceed Infidels in so foul and unsociable an Impiety. Which that they may the better prevent; Though the bare attestation of a Mussleman, or Turkish Believer is often taken for an authentic proof against a Stranger; Yet in their ordinary trials between one another, they proceed with more Caution, so as not to rely upon Oaths themselves; but from private Examinations, and Questions so unexpected and artificially put, as no premeditated Combination can evade, they extract grounds for Sentence: By which, malice is defeated, & perjury prevented, frequent amongst us, where the Lives and Estates of conscientious people are without remedy exposed to their mercy, who scruple not the calling God to the witness of a Lie. Nor can there be imagined any better way how to avoid this mischief, or yield a sincere and faithful Obedience to the Precept of our Saviour, swear not at all, &c. (which the corrupt glosses of Expositors labour much, though all in vain, to elude) then, if, instead of that slight and irreverent manner of Swearing, or rather prostituting the Word of God to the kiss of impure lips, according to the loose custom of all our Courts of Judicature, the Judges themselves, or those appointed for that purpose, would take the pains, by the touchstone of a diligent scrutiny, and scrupulous examination of Witnesses apart, to distinguish the pure and golden Truth, from the baser alchemy of the most cunningly-forged falsehood.  
60. They prefer Christianity so far, as no Jew can turn Turk till he hath been Christened: The vulgar thinking God best pleased with such a gradation, though Authority interjected this Ceremony to fence them against a too great concourse of this subtle people, who in relation to Circumcision, are apter to embrace their Religion than ours; & do by their Conversion lessen the profit arising from them as Jews. Now lest the Impiety of casting blocks in the way of Proselytes should seem to relate only to this so much abominated Nation, I desire to be informed, if there be not a Law in force here, at the Jews being in England, as there is still in some other Nations, That such of them as turned Christians, should lose all, or the greatest part of what they had. For which this pious reason was given, That many remained Jews still in their hearts, notwithstanding an outward profession: Thus a greater hypocrisy cheated the less.  
61. I find them, though constant to their own, yet so indulgent to the opinions of Strangers, as to afford such a safe pass among them: which, besides the profit it brings to Commerce, keeps them in so moderate a temper, as the plague of hypocrisy (which like an Iron-mole, stains, and in a short time eats out the purity of Religion, by acting a sublimer impiety than the nature of man unsuborned through Ambition or covetousness, is able to make real, longer than a fanatic heat inspires it) hath not yet there broke out farther than among some few particulars; though by such the Cockatrice of civil war is ordinarily disclosed in the bosoms of Christians, concluding all damned which rest not in their Expositions and customs, how ridiculous soever: Not considering the mischief they do, that remove old uncertain Errors, before they have found as certain Truths to put in their room. The same may be said of reputed inconveniences; such as is their conniving at Courtesans (Chiefly done to prevent Adultery, Sodomy, and B stiality; sins infesting these hot countries therefore) possibly less abominable than some Divines make it. This sort of cattle being as ancient as the Patriarch Judah: Neither did divers others, looked upon as men after God's own heart, blush to keep droves of them: Nay, if some be not foully out in their Expositions, they are reckoned to David in the Bill of God's Blessings: And he that doth by this public sin, as some have done by Religion, exchange it for a worse (though perhaps more solitary) I pray what hath the Nation left to brag of? Faults of greater privacy, though less natural, increasing Hypocrites more than Saints. And if our Blessed Saviour should now speak to the Consciences of men, as he did to the Jews, He that is without sin, &c. I believe Fornication would scape, whatever became of Adultery. To conclude this point, it is so much the greater boldness, to add to, than diminish from the severity of God, as we stand more in need of his Mercy than Justice.  
62. The gross of their Revenue is employed in securing the Empire at home, or fetching Victory from abroad: The Grand signior being only luxurious in Women, and domestic pleasures; which like fontanelles in the body, may possibly evaporate worse humours than they foment: Though contrary to the better inculcated, than practised Doctrine of our Theologues, especially those of the Church of Rome; Catholic Kings rather conniving at this mischief, than the perpetual inconveniences resulting from a married clergy, who by giving their Children better breeding than Estates, are the cause they do not seldom fall into exorbitances.  
63. REpute hath swelled the Sultan's power to such a vast Monstrosity, and so far dazzled the eyes of Christian Princes, weakened by divisions in Religion, that they dare not look upon him without a Present; Neither is the Persian much bolder, which gives him the advantage, no less than honour to be still on the offensive: And in this the generosity he useth, to divulge the Prince, if not the place he meaneth next to attack, turns more to his advantage, than may appear to every eye; other Nations resting so secure upon this, as they do not provide, if at all, a defence proportionable to the danger; which if once made ready, could not be laid out to a more probable advantage for themselves and Christendom, than in stopping the progress of this Polyphaemus, who is likely, if not prevented by some civil Rupture, to devour all the Italian Principalities, if once he ravish the Venetian, whose hands have been weakened by the longest war that ever any single State maintained against this Monster, who for want of assistance, cannot choose but shortly yield up Candy to his Lust: And then our drowsy Princes, who were no more affected with her Cries, than wakened by the noise of her Canon, and the voice of Prudence daily roaring in their ears, shall lament their error, and curse themselves, and the counsel that moved them to observe this unnatural Neutrality, and to prefer a little pleasure they take in gratifying the envy they have ever borne to this more magnificent republic (Tied by all reason to maintain the smaller States of Italy in being) before the assuring of their fears by a cordial combining against this common enemy, of whose mercy they can have no hope; Nothing being more suitable to his former procedure, or future security, than utterly to eradicate them, long looked upon by him as the only obstructers of his farther progress into Christendom; Though apparently known, that what the Venetians do, is rather by the strength of their Heads, than Hands, having not yet made themselves very famous for Valour, participating not so much of the Lion, as Fox, with whose skin most of their achievements are found to be lined; being themselves, if fools in any thing, in the excessive awe they stand of Death, the cause they employ Strangers. Neither is it a less wonder, that France, Spain, and other potent Nations, do daily pass by greater affronts received from the Ottoman Empire, without the least notice taken, than they are observed to fight for among themselves; as if nothing could be dishonourable or unsafe, but what ariseth from the injuries of men of the same Religion; an argument of as great Imprudence, as Impiety, especially resulting from the Omission, if not Commission of the Court of Rome: For did the Jesuits and other active Priests turn the tide of their Policy (which hath already immerged Europe in blood) towards the Turks, they might soon be overflown by as great a deluge of schisms, as we are now plunged in: But the fear of losing the Bird in hand, makes the Pope unwilling to employ his Engines for the taking of this: Not considering that the Mahometan profession is grown up to as high an earthly Felicity, Universality, and Consent, as the Papacy; Neither do they want as great an Antiquity for some of their Tenets, the which if they once come to be washed over by the varnish of Learning, the Mufty may, assisted by his Master's force, turn his holiness out of Rome, as that Bishop did the Emperors; and so avenge Europe and Asia both, for the rent the subtle Priests made between the East and the West Churches?, for no more religious respect, than to beautify their own habit and increase their Power.  
And if the Virgin City of Venice comes to be wholly prostituted to the lust of this Monster, who hath already entangled his Sword in one of her strongest Locks, it is possible the Catholic King shall not be able long to enjoy those Concubinary Principalities, made his by no juster Contract, than the Procuration of his Chaplain, the Pope, his own subtlety, and the impertinent Quarrels of less advised Neighbours: But to give the Pope his due (looked upon by the dazzled eyes of our zealots, for a more terrible Devil than it may be he is, were he confined within a narrower Circle, in relation to temporal power) Christian Princes are apt to take so much advantage from the harping irons, Luther, Calvin, and other Divines (perhaps better skilled in subverting Errors, than reconciling of Truth) have fastened in the sides of this Ecclesiastical Leviathan, not to be kept floating in a narrower Sea, than that of Rome, (formerly as magisterial in things temporal, as now she remains in spirituals, which prudence might manage to as universal a tranquillity, as appeared in the days of Augustus) that he hath no leisure to look abroad, for fear the same Spirit that troubled the waters in Germany, should dry up those in Italy, &c. It being in the power of every Prince to cut the banks of the Church, which in France is the fear of schism, and in the Catholic King's Dominions, the Inquisition. Yet in case his holiness should make it a cordial endeavour to foment a League against the Turk, France and Spain would fall out who should head it, and endeavour to spoil the others Subjects in the mean time: Such incomparable Charity resides among Christian Princes, that value Religion no higher than the profit it brings: so as the Roman Bishop, with all his Emissaries, have full employment by adding and taking away, to keep the scales even between these two tottering Princes, and to heighten their spirits against England, and other Nations at enmity with Rome; lest we should have a Great Turk of our own, that is, an Universal Monarch, under whose absolute power the Pope and all other Christian Princes could expect no higher places than those of Vassals. And though a Combination were feasible, small advantage would accrue; since every considerable confederate must have a general of their own; from whence would proceed more Cry than wool, by perplexing Counsels with contrary commands: Because, if it were probable Kings should so far forget their Honour, as to lay down all disputes about precedence, yet their particular Interest could not but remember them, that the strength designed against the Turk, might, after success, recoil upon themselves: not without a precedent in Story: and therefore not likely to employ any other in chief, but their own Subjects. And what contrary affections, ends, and endeavours are covered under a Force patched up of so many Nations, is manifest in the Maritime battle of Lepanto: where, though the desire of all might be to eclipse the Ottoman Moon; yet it was in many so faint, as they could not endure it should be removed quite out of its Sphere, or lose the Interest it doth exercise within the Christian Pale (which by a through persecution of that naval victory, might easily have been brought about) out of fear, the greater Princes, by that secured, should after have made it their endeavour to devour the less: And this (with some Un brags of Jealousies the Catbolick King had of his Brother Don John of Austria) made the Confederates return without doing more than show the Grand signior wherein he was defective, and by this chastizing to make him mend the fault he had committed in being no better provided of Commanders and Provisions for Sea, which he hath since repaired at our cost, by maintaining an arsenal in Algeers, of which the King of Spain denied his Brother to be governor; so jealous are Christians one of the other, that they have more confidence in Turks, than those of their own Religion: yet, to speak God's troth, whosoever shall command an Army against this epidemical Enemy, with such success as Don John had, will be owner of too popular an Honour, to be less than superlative wherever he comes; and therefore liable, like him, to receive a Fig out of the venomous hand of jealousy. Which warrants me to think, the fittest for such an employment as the heading an Army raised by a League, is the Pope, who lying within gunshot himself, is the most likely to take the truest aim at the finishing of the work: But this the Lutherans and Protestants would oppose, no less than the Princes of Italy, who cannot but fear, that the power of the Ottoman Family being sufficiently moderated, he could have no better employment for the Army, than to face them with it, looked upon perhaps in his esteem, as greater enemies: Yet if there were an unity in Religion, and a total abatement of his holiness pretences to any secular power, farther than the extent of Peter's Patrimony, it might with more probability be brought about, than any temporal Prince is able to give caution for: And thus Policy might not only make use of him, in opposing the Turk, but in reconciling such Kings, as when they are weary of their inconsiderate Quarrels, know no other way to bring about peace, than by the mediation of the Bishop of Rome. But as things now stand, Experience hath taught us how vain a Composition of Force is, in the attempt of moderating the Ottoman grandeur: Nor is any Prince yet in a capacity to undertake him alone; The Emperor being shackled by the links of contrary Opinions, and now utterly disabled since the Swedes Ineursion: I confess, the Catholic King, upon whose skirts he sits, were the most likely to get ground upon the Turks Dominions, did not the French perplex him with the fear of losing his own: Between which Nations there can be no reconciliation, so long as the Pope's greatness is supported by Division; An universal Monarchy in Europe being more against the grain of the Court of Rome, than it yet apprehends danger from that in Asia; so as it is no improbable Paradox to maintain, That the Turk by accident supports his holiness: And if the Pope and Inquisition were put down, atheism would break in like a Torrent; or, which is worse, Religion would be divided into such destructive, bloody, and hypocritical streams, as her name would be quite lost in the dilatation, or render her professors as odious as ever they were to the Heathen Emperors: especially since she hath in all places, and under every profession, learned of Ambition to lay out the price of her Salvation in a field of blood, without respect had to Covenants, oaths, allegiance, or the most natural and obliging Relations; therefore formidable to Kings, whose single and open bosoms render them a fair mark, not only to the forked Tongues, but the venomous-tempered Steel of an exasperated zeal; so, not likely to be entertained in any place, but where her own Sword shall be able to bid her welcome: The Beauty of holiness, with which she was wont to allure Proselytes, being now shrivelled into ugliness, by her frequent application of the sublimated paint of Hyporisy; so generally observed among Christians, as neither the Turk, or any other Mahometan Nation can, in Prudence, if in Piety, barter their Faith for ours; The drought of whose Charity hath obstructed the means of Conversion in relation to all foreigners not formerly engaged by Birth and Education: so as no probability resides in any endeavour can be used to tempt the Turks from Mahumet, unless (as I hinted before) some Jesuit were able to personate his Ghost, and proclaim himself risen, according to their Prophet's long-delayed promise: for such an one might possibly prevail so far upon the Rabble, as to make them fall foul among themselves: A breach in Religion being found by experience the readiest way to let in that Ocean of Calamities, we see overflows the Kingdoms of the Earth.  
Another Expedient may lie in supporting such Cedars of State, as are marked out for ruin by the fears or Fury of the Prince; and if possible, to give shelter to some of the younger royal Branches, who are sure upon their Father's death to be sacrificed to the security of the elder; and may, as occasion serves, facilitate a Rebellion, by landing an Army able to make good the Field, whilst the snowball is gathering: A project most convenient for the wisdom and Situation of Venice, were she owner of the Power and extent of Territory belonging to old Rome, whose heir she deserves best to be, since she alone retains more of her freedom than all the known world besides is able to produce: Her Government being built on such rational, if not infallible Miximes, as might bear the weight of a far greater frame, if Italy were wise enough to see it; who need not be concubinary to so many wanton desires of Strangers, would all her small and newhatched Governments shelter themselves under her wings, who are known to spend more severally in hiring of Peace from the Turk, Spaniard, Pope, &c. than wisely laid out in an entire sum, would purchase the power to command it.  
From whence may be concluded, If the Grand Segmor do not fall through his own weight, he may live to see Europe under as great a thraldom in every relation to body and soul, as Turkey, unless he be cordially opposed at his own door: Tyrants, like Dogs, having their fierceness, rather whetted than rebated by a defensive opposition: whereas he that breaks resolutely in upon them, makes them not seldom take their heels: All changes in such an extremity being looked upon with delight and affection at home, by those that abroad would die to extend the same Government over others: Oppression being so odious to Subjects, as all will upon any probable advantage promote its destruction to the very persons that share in their desires with the Monarch, wanting the power more than the will to perpetrate the like degree of injustice themselves.  
64. The Turk deduceth this Doctrine out of the perfidiousness of the Christian Practice, That it is to little purpose (by reason of the contrary pretences of Princes) to make leagues Offensive and Defensive, which he hath seldom done; yet considers his neighbour's dangers as his own, before delay hath rendered them incurable; Apparent in the large offers he made to Venice, whilst she lay under the interdict of Paul the fift; and might, if her Subjects had not been wiser, through civil divisions have lapsed into the hands of Spain, as divers Nations less prudent have done, by their own folly and a stupid patience of their neighbours, whose ordinary custom is to forbear giving assistance, till it is rendered unseasonable, and that they are not able to redeem them by all their endeavours, much less by a too late repentance; as in the case of Navarre, neglected by the Crown of France; and Ditchy of Lorraine, by that of Spain: Any Augmentation to one of these kingdoms being an equal Diminution from the other; the consideration of which keeps Geneva in being. And the averseness the Turk hath towards any strict Confederation with foreigners, gives him not only the liberty to preserve his friends, but to take any advantage to enlarge himself: His Subjects not having such vast Estates abroad, as might deter him from taking a revenge in case of injury, for fear of an Embargement: whereas Christians have warehouses in Constantinople full of wealth, and to such a value, as give this Infidel caution for his using us at his pleasure without danger: Nor have we more than the Emperor's bare word to secure our Trade, which it is likely you may tell me, he observes as religiously as other Princes.  
Neither is he prodigal in ambassadors: for, keeping still the offensive end of the staff, he is often sued to, but seldom sends a wooing for Peace; which obtained is found of no longer life than it suits with the occasions and counsels of both parties: Therefore Consederations, Truces, and Leagues, signify nothing but danger to the weaker side, who by these are not seldom tempted to neglect the guard that cannot in prudence be lessened upon this score, it being an infallible certainty, that nothing moves another, but Profit, Honour, or Nature; The last of which doth less concern the Grand signior, because he seeks not to match his Daughters out of his own Territories, esteeming no blood royal, but what runs in his own veins, and his that is to succeed him: Neither is he lycorish after the choice of the Issue of Kings for his own Bed, finding the same content in the embraces of a Subject or a Slave, that a more bewitched Imagination apprehends in those of a Princess: Nor doth his modesty abuse him, but acquits him from the danger of having a spy in his bosom, or a coequal in his counsels; giving him leave to put to death or exchange his Wives upon occasion, without the fear of any other frown but that of Heaven; amongst whose joys (according to his Creed) is Change of Women, and all carnal Delights.  
And by the division he makes of his Love among many Wives, he renders the Government less-factious; the distaff having been found no friend to the sceptre, opening often a back door to Innovation; apparent in Christians, who Marrying the daughters of more potent Princes than themselves, are so far overawed by them, as to make them partners in their most secret designs, else they are able to distress them through the strength of their own friends. Thus a Prince comes to have an Enemy in his bosom, and such an one as he dares not question, for fear of a shower at home and a storm from abroad. So as if all the benefit Story can record to have (at least of late) accrued to Kings from the great allies of their Wives, were put together, you shall find it inconsiderable, computed with the loss, especially if their Religion differs; for than she looking upon him as out of the reach of God's mercy, can think nothing an injury to his person, or a loss to his estate, if her ghostly fathers are pleased to encourage her; Considerations without bottom in this conformity in Profession, and parity in Subjection; where the birth of the first Son gives the title of Sultana to a slave, the highest honour or employment a woman can be borne to: and what might abundantly content them also in Europe, where they are made the Arbitrators of the royal Line.  
65. The Emperor appears not in public, but on Horseback, where all deformities, if he owes any, are best concealed; And is then in such splendour: as the former-ingaged opinion of the multitude renders him more than human whereas our less majestic Princes become so cheap by their daily figging up and down the streets after their pleasures unattended, whilst this graver Monarch enjoys them all under his own roof: where none are suffered to enter, but those that are dumb from their Births, or are rendered so through fear or use; no action or word breathed out of the Seraglio, to the Emperor's disadvantage, but proves mortal to the divulger: Not possible to be observed among Christians, whose meals, like puppet-plays, are made the object of all eyes, and their lightest Discourses (apt then to break out) the scorn of Strangers, that blow them over the four corners of the earth, with no small addition; whilst their own Subjects calculate a crooked nature from the Deformities of their Bodies, evil Gestures, or a too luxurious taking in of their Wine or Meat: It not being easy to show a man at a greater disadvantage, than whilst he is taking his Repast, the most certain Symbol of Mortality This altogether cast; no less cloud over their Majesty, than their Cheats and Perjuries, to procure Money, are observed to do upon their Probity: which raiseth such a damp of Contempt about the Throne, as the Obedience they own, proceeds rather from a dread of their present power, than any voluntary or natural affection their Subjects bear to them or their virtues; of which they have so low esteem, as they think them easy to be matched, if not by themselves, by a number their Commerce and Experience hath coped withal.  
66. In progress his Train is not inferior to an Army; in which he receives all graciously that come to see him: And by this Strength and Affability the remotest parts are not only wooed to Obedience, but terrified from Insurrections; calculating by the Power attending him in his Pleasures, the terribleness of a Force that should be raised in his Fury: Notwithstanding at this time nothing appears about him but Love in his words, and Charity in his actions; For where he sees the earth covered with poor, he casts his money, which, like water put into a Pump, gives him the opportunity safely to drain the more affluent Rich. This makes the Generality look upon him as a God, that may give way to Punishment, never to Passion.  
67. He owns not in his royal Person any ingrateful Imposition, but appears ever before his people like the Sun; carrying in his looks no less Serenity than Splendour in all about him; and answers any clamours of Joy with as cordial Blessings and Thanks: knowing it as uncomely for a Prince in public to seem angry, as poor; That threatening no less danger to the Lives, than This doth presage encroachment upon the Fortunes of all that come to see him. And though none can more freely command what belongs to his Subjects, he discovers no will to employ any Arbitrary power in his own person, how well so ever it suits with his Nature or Occasions; Handling all Grievances to his people by the mediation of others, whom upon emergency he delivers up to their Fury. Neither doth this lessen the number of these Harpies, any more than it doth Conjurers, to hear their Predecessors were torn in pieces by the command of those they had formerly nourished with their Blood. Thus by such amiable gestures, and the high price he seems in public to set upon the Nations content, so great a Love is kindled in the hearts of his Subjects, that all the evils that fall upon them are removed from the principal cause, and attributed to such as are only instrumental in their promotion. A practice waved by our less advised Monarchs, who sit in Parliament, as Jupiter is painted, with Thunder in their hands, as if they had already the will and power, and wanted nothing but their people's consent to make them miserable; not affording a grateful concession, but by the high and rugged way of Exchange; nor good words, but to usher in a more chargeable Request; scorning to reckon with the Subject, & make even for their Minions and Officers Faults, till they are so far run in the account of Prejudice, that all Love and Obedience is quite forfeited, and the Crown exposed to the purchase of any that hath the subtlety and power to buy it.  
68 For to obviate the like miscarriage, the Turk gives often a favourable hearing to such as complain of the Grandees, not seldom gratifying them with the Heads of their Oppressors: By which he doth not only stop the mouths of his people with a show of Piety and Justice, but fills his exchequer with the real Coin he finds about those thus complained of: Yet if he takes the party's Life to be more considerable to his affairs than his Death, he satisfies the public discontent, by translating the Offender to some remoter employment, where, being farther from the Court, severity may be more necessary, at least not so dishonourable, as when it appears at the foot of his Chair: Thinking it not safe, to gall the many-headed Monster twice in a Place, with one and the same Engine. And by this even and constant procedure, an uninterrupted Prosperity hath been entailed to this Empire, that the voice of Liberty continues still such a stranger in their streets, as if their Language were barren of a word to express it. Thus by claiming nothing, he enjoys all, and, by defending none of his bad Instruments, hath been secure himself, till these latter years, in which some Constellation seems to hover over the World, inclining all Nations to Rebellion. This emboldens me to assert it as a maxim, That Princes contract more hatred from the injustice and oppressions of their Favourites, than their own: A far less Revenue, than doth legally depend on a Crown, being able to correspond for a greater sum, than the follies of a single person can possibly consume, unless attached by the bottomless humour of Play, which a prudent Prince cannot choose but look upon as far below the dignity of his person; it being impossible for him either to win or lose, but at the prejudice of his Courtiers or Subjects.  
69. Here is no medium between the Anger of the Sultan & Death: A great man flayed out of Office, being rarely or never permitted to mingle among the people, who are easily suborned out of pity, to believe such persecuted for their sakes: Therefore Discontent is not suffered to live; the Power being as severely punished, as the Will to do Mischief: This makes the Grandees to carry their bodies swimming between Popularity, and an epidemical Dislike: since though the first be the most certain messenger of Death, yet the latter doth not seldom bring the same errand; For, such as by Taxes or perverting of Justice (though by the Emperor's command) are found abusers of the people, die some cruel death, to give the more public satisfaction; whereas those who fall under his jealousy, in relation to his particular safety, leave the world by a less painful Exit; which may breed an opinion in the Multitude, That their Prince is only cruel on their behalf, and at the worst but severe in his own. Here the vanity of Court Minions is manifest, who like Beasts for Sacrifice, are crowned and honoured, till their Master's sins require their blood to set him right in the opinion of the people; in the fury of whom lies all the Hell, the Religion of most Princes teacheth them to apprehend.  
70. THe Priests screw up to the height of Miracles all unusual Contingencies, which make not a few in such a Mass of Events; neither is their Report wanting to augment them: And these are still hanged before the eyes of the People, either to terrify or allure them, as it suits with the present humour of State. And thus the Popish Legend came to be gilded by so many miraculous effects of Saints, and their relics, which, after all contradiction was buried, appeared to the world under no less than a cloud of witnesses: Being capable of no stronger confutation, than what they receive from a present incapacity of doing the like. Now if the Turks have been too numerous in their election, or hyperbolical in the predication of these pious, or rather useful deceits, the error is committed after the example of the Court of Rome, the most exact Copy for Policy the world affords. Nor is there place left for blame in relation to either, since what was obtruded upon the Catholics heretofore, suited as well the apprehensions of those times, as these do now the Turks: Therefore the Imprudence lies not in the folly of the Miracles, but theirs, who suffered such a critical Learning to blaze out, as pretends matter of Reproof in all things extant: knowledge being as great an enemy to our present felicity, as it was to that in Paradise: So as Rome is forced at this day to let Miracles fall, out of fear to find herself detected by the now-supernumerany issue of tattling Apollo, which, out of too much Wit, or too little Faith, make an over-strict scrutiny into their Truth; hanging like Locusts, and croaking like Frogs, about all things that seem green or rotten in the Church: Nor will they fall off, till their mouths be stopped by Preferment, or their heads satisfied with Reason: Yet had she but enough of the first, it might suffice to purchase a competent proportion of the latter, or at worst so much Sophistry as might serve her turn: But the ancient Piety being blended in Luxury, & her Revenue in a great proportion swallowed up by the covetousness of Princes; the Pope & clergy hold the Remainder by no better Tenure than by rendering themselves necessary to the ambition of Monarchs, especially that of Spain; republics being naturally not so auspicious to the Priesthood. nevertheless, lest the Catholic King should attain to an absolute power in Christendom, under which his holiness would be totally eclipsed, his principal endeavour has been to foment a difference still between him and France, and so by their banding to keep himself up in play; Shifts the Church was never put to, during the Golden Age of Ignorance, when Learning and all Books lay at her mercy; so as she had power to cut them shorter, or extend their sense as best fitted the occasion: The Laity being so perplexed between the hope of Heaven, and fear of Hell, that the dark entry of Death gave the Priests as opportune a way to become their Executors, as the bloody night of the Passeover did the Jews to rob the Egyptians. But now in the absence of the ancient Piety and Ignorance, the Church of Rome hath no better way to keep Reason from breaking in upon her (who like a wolf hath, this last Century, lain gnawing at the Pope's Honour and Profit) than by sacrificing more men yearly to the fury of the Inquisition, than Solomon did Beasts at the dedication of the Temple: An Impiety not chargeable upon the Turk, who kills none for the profession of any Religion, though never so contrary to his own; leaving God to avenge his Truth, which no question he would not be long in doing, were he so angry with the opposite tenants, as they in their furious Sermons are pleased to represent him.  
71. The Turk finding Printing and Learning the chief fomentors of Livisions in Christendom, hath hitherto kept them out of his Territories. Yet, whilst wet tire out our best time in tugging at the hard Text of a dry Book, or the study of strange Languages (which are but the Bindings of Learning, and do often cover less Knowledge, than may be had in our own Ideom) they come more adapted into State-employments, and sooner furnished with clearer Reason, drawn from the quicker Fountains of less-erring Experience; And were never yet found to be out-reached in Prudence, by the most politic and learned Princes in Europe. Nor can any think this strange, that considers what the custom of Universities requires at the hands of Students, viz. knowledge in the Arts so called, and a nimble mouthing of canting terms, coined by themselves, and so current in the commerce of no larger Understandings than their own, & such as are sworn to the same Principles: The vanity of which is in nothing more apparent than in this, that they can easier start ten Errors, than kill one, as is manifest in the differences between us and Rome; concerning which, though in right reason we do, and cannot but agree in many things, yet the heat and rancour of the dispute is no whit abated.  
72. All Sciences any ways resembling those we call liberal, are taught nowhere but in the Seraglio, where the Grand signior hath the power to increase or diminish the number of their Professors, according as it suits his occasions. Able men resembling wanton boys, that, rather than be unemployed, will do mischief; None attaining to any perfection but what he hath use for: Idle Valour being the tool, as Learning & Knowledge are the operators of all Civil dissensions. A course quite contrary to the ill husbandry of Europe, or more particularly England, in whose Body Mercury and Sulphur exceed Employment, which should be the Salt to fix the rest, and keep them from putrefaction: For want of which her schools do man out as many Enemies as Friends, legible in the vast volumes of Controversies that lie vendible on every Stall. This results from the multitude of Grammer-Schooles (in the building of which appears more Zeal than Knowledge) where all come that are but able to bring a Bag and a Bottle, no unfit Emblem of the future poverty of their Trade; In which, like a Lottery, ten take their chance in beggary, for one that meets with a Prize; and that, when it comes, is scarce worth the labour, cost, & time required in making them capable: No men's fortunes being confined in so narrow a Circle, nor built upon such shaking Foundations, as those of Scholars: The fire already kindled in Church and State, by their clashing in Opinions, having melted the basins and larger Plate, our Ancestors set up for the encouragement of Learning, which, like a Viper, doth now endeavour to eat out the bowels of her Mother. For the Parents of schoolboys not being able to advance them higher, all the rest is lost but Reading and Writing, and they rendered by seven or eight years lazy living, uncapable of the labour belonging to the more profitable Plough, and so become Serving men, and Lawyers, and Justices Clerks; by the virtue of which profession they turn cunning Knaves, and cozen their country: A charge circumcised in Turkey, by mixing the expensive Callings of Law and Divinity together, by which the Priests are so fully employed, as no leisure is given to study Innovation in either profession, and consequently dries up the fountains of Rebellion. Which foreseen by the prudent eye of the divine Legislator, Moses, directed him to the uniting of the sacred Rites, and civil Sanctions into one Body, making the Law of the Land a piece of God's Law, and the Justice of the Magistrate, Religion: which stamps no less authority upon the Law, than it procures Reverence to the Judges, and promiseth to the Government, where it is entertained, Length of days and Safety on the one hand, with Riches and Honour on the other. Which course affords also such Expedition as gives one side, at least, cause to applaud Justice; whereas here the bettered party is left so little to boast of, that he returns home as ill satisfied, as he which had Sentence pronounced against him.  
73. Neither are these delays any whit remedied by the ill-Husbandry of breeding so many to the long Robe, as are found in England: which excess springs from the multitude of Pedants that reign among us; who, like Flies, blow one another in such quantities, over the Nation, as they do not only supplant those of their own Calling (which is itself were mischief enough) but infect all Government. Their Scholars, if they arrive to any maturity, at length turn academics, whose cloistered and Monkish Learning is by Statesmen looked upon as resembling dead Honey, which is stale, course and less useful, none being pure and virginal, but what is sucked from every Flower, that may be found in the wild field of a general Commerce. For though out of the huge heap of University-men Providence hath snatched such choice Brands, as are able to illuminate the world yet let these towering Eagles speak sincerely (who like the Soul of Learning appear above that vast pile of Fathers, schoolmen, Linguists, critics, &c. heaped up by the Court of Rome, for a funeral to all farther enquiry after Truth) and they must tell you, that the least part of this excellency came from their Mother: The Tongues being at the best but the Crackers of Knowledge: the kernel remaining useless, if not bitter and loathsome, till picked & dressed by Employment & Experience. Nor can this be admired by such as consider the practice of ordinary Tutors, who throw to their Pupils the dry Bones, and not the Marrow of Erudition: By which more time is often consumed in the setting out, than a wise man perhaps would have thought well spent in the whole Journey.  
74. This is not said to bring any water towards the cleansing of their hands, who either have or do intend to imbrue them in the Sacrilegious spoils of colleges, to the utter discouragement of all future Charity; I wish them rather cut off: For though thousands are found to bury their Talents in the ocean of Controversies, and an implicit adhering to the writings of the Ancients (who might possibly err out of no less policy, than the Church of Rome hath since maintained them) yet all ages do afford some that scorn to be tied up to patterns. but enrich the world with such new Inventions, as may not only expiate for the Charge, but the Ignorance of all Foundations.  
75. Thus I have shown, that the Turk's want of knowledge in our Learning or Religion, leaves him neither so Imprudent or Wicked, but that he is able to promote his own Interest, and willing to make his Subjects so far happy, as may suit with an Absolute power.  

AN INDEX OF The particulars contained in the Observations upon the TURKISH GOVERNMENT.  
1. THe Preface; Mahumet the Founder of the Turkish Empire: his Story disadvantagiously recorded, for want of Pens of their own. 2. The time lucky for his Attempts. 3. His Followers ignorant, and (so) apt to take any Religious impression. 4. Cross Accidents hindered not their progress. 5. 7. His chief Rites gathered out of Judaism and Christianity.— 6. Images prohibited, and why.— 8. The institution and Use of (the Jewish &) their Sabbath, And— 9 Priests. 10. Their Policy directed more to the Prince's Interest, than the Priest's— 11. Who are to be kept in a Mediocrity. 12. The Aliaron, by whom interpreted. 13. Prayers more frequent than Preaching. 14. In what Uses their Doctrine ends,— 15. Not to expect happiness here, but in another world.— Their practice not so bad as some Christians. 16. The advantages to the State from Oaths and Religion.— 17. Though a false one; and from churchmen, who yet drive on their own interest.— 18. The Mahometan Rites not chargeable or grievous to Nature.— Sacrifices, why omitted. 19 Their Abstinence from Wine, and the Reasons thereof. 20. Their Constancy to their Primitive Institutes; the mischief of Change, and— 21. Their Provisions against it.— 22. Reasons of State for the Mufiy's Advancement and— the emperor's honouring him in public. 23. (Mecca within his own power.)— 24, Which yet cannot always secure him from his jealousy; but upon occasion he makes him away privately; yet without aspersing his Fame, and why.— 25. Of the Expediency of such clandistine Dispatches.— 26. A Reflection upon Queen Elizabeth for executing Queen Mary of Scotland,— 27. Of the custom for the Grand Seniour to strangle his Brothers. 28. Lust and Covetousnesse tolerated by the Turks.— 29. Christians more impolitickly intent upon penal laws.— 30. Punishments in Turkey not so common as severe: popular Incendiaries removed out of the way, privately.— The Folly of Subjects to rebel and Rulers to provoke them. 31. Turkish Honours and Offices not Hereditary.— 32. Nor Estates,— which makes all apply themselves to Trades: The benefits thereof, and mischiefs of idleness,— 33. Luxury, Excessive Building, Furniture.— 34. Horse-races, Hunting, &c.— avoided (much) by their polygamy. 35. Their public Buildings magnificent; which some Christians demolish: Advice to public Spirits, rather to build Bridges, and mend highways. 36. In order to augmentation of Empire, their interest promotes three things. 37 First, Obedience, either sacred, to the Mufty, &c.— 38. or civil ●● the Emperor, who is very absolute. 39 Secondly, Parity. 40 Thirdly, Fortitude, 41. Eunuchs made generals, and why. 42. Janissaries, why unmarried. 43. Quarter seldom granted, or not till after full victory,— 44. which they will not throw away upon poor places. 45. Their Ordinance. 46. Their Food not dainty. 47. Their Expeditions why in Summer: Their Armies so strong, as not to need Reserves, 48. Upon a loss they retreat, without hazarding another, and why. 49. They are able to keep the soldier employed. 50. The Cavalry encouraged; a Feud between them and the Foot; which prevents Conspiracies; the like doth their being raised out of several Nations. 51. Forts pernicious to such great Princes, though of use to weaker ones. 52. Religion, why not proclaimed the cause of War. Constantinople unworthily lost. 53. They fight not so courageously against those of their own belief. Success an ill Judge of Truth. 54. The Sword an unfit instrument to Plant Religion.— 55. That of the Mahometans, why it rather inclines to Hope than fear;— Contrary to the Popish Goblins, which intimidate soldiers: The Turks breed up theirs to Valour and Obedience. 56. They count Fate inexorable, yet pray: though Praise were more proper. 57 Mahometans and Jews abhor Christians for their Images and real presence. 58. The Turk subtle in his Treaties, and if necessitated to break his word, charges the blame upon his Ministers.— 59 Yet by reason of his strength, is seldom driven to such base shifts, as weaker Princes make use of. Perjury of latter times more frequant among Christians, which these Infidels avoid (in judiciary Trials) by examining witnesses apart, &c. instead of taking their testimonies upon Oath. 60. Why Jews must turn Christians, before they may become Turks. 61. Opinions of Strangers indulged, and— Courtesans tolerated. 62. The Grand Seniors Revenue employed in his Wars,— his Pleasure. 63. His Wars, by reason of his strength, effensive, and— openly proclaimed, why. The Venetians impolitickly deserted. A Combination of Christians against the Turk,— how unlikely to succeed upon several accounts:— who should head it?— The Pope,— The Emperor,— The King of Spain,— The Venetians. Expedients to weaken the Turk,— The Jesuits (if the Pope could spare them) to foment schism, &c. among the,— To shelter some of the younger royal Branches, or Grandees, that may head an Army, &c.— 64. Why the Turk seldom makes Leagues,— sends Ambassadors, or— marries foreigners,— though he take many Wives. 65. Why the Grand Senior appears not in public, but on horseback, and in such splendour; yet takes his Repast and pleasures privately in the Seraglio; The contrary use how disadvantageous to Christian Princes. 66. His vast train in progress; yet— affable and winning carriage. 67. For Impositions and such like Grievances he useth Instruments.— 68 Whom, upon occasion, he either delivers up to the fury of the People, or removes farther off. 69. His Wrath fatal. 70. The Turkish Priests cry up all strange Events for Miracles, as well as the Papists— whose Juggles have been detected by the Learning of this last Age.— 71. Which, together with Printing, the Turk tolerates not; A reflection upon University-Customes. 72. Those Sciences the Turks have, are taught in the Seraglio only. The multitude of grammar-schools among us do more hurt than good. In Turkey the Offices of Priest and Lawyer are united; as the laws of the Jews, both Divine and Civil, were into one Body by Moses,— The best form of Government. 73. A modest Censure of and— 74 An apology for Universities and colleges. 75. The Conclusion.    

A discourse UPON Nicolas Machiavelli: OR, An impartial examination of the justness of the Censure commonly laid upon him.  
Machiavelli is branded by all, neither can any absolve him quite from Blame: Yet, considering he was not only an Italian, but a Courtier, few can do less than admire his bad fortune to see one man inherit, in particular, the mass of Reproaches, due to all Princes and Statesmen in general; so far as to style, in way of Contempt, such Machiavellians, who in a truer sense might be termed Followers of Charles the fifth, Lewis the eleventh, or Henry the seventh. By this, embracing the bare Apparitions of virtue and Vice, without observing the true Substance, which they quite let pass; marking for Blemishes in precedent times, what Historians note for Prudence, if not Beauty in ours: So as he that impartially examines the lives of those formerly named (who are yet no Prodigies in the Nature of Government) may find more evil, than can be deduced out of this man's scenes, or (for aught we know) the worst of his Thoughts: Yet they have wisdom inscribed on their Tombs, by the Penners and Readers of their Stories, in which they lie quiet under the favour of some elegant apology, hitherto denied to Machiavelli by ignorant and ungrateful Posterity.  
He was Secretary to the State of Florrence, of which he hath left an incomparable History, with other books so full of Truth, Learning and Experience, that the hand of Detraction hath not been able to asperse them; only it endeavours to attach some straggling expressions in a small Pamphlet, called His Prince, which are with far less Charity remembered, than so many larger and better pieces forgotten.  
That he was employed in honourable Embassies, is manifested from Story; And what umbragious and false Positions ambassadors Professions oblige them to, the Transactions of all States abundantly declare: For, as the Italian saith, The best of Women with their Pettyacoats divest their Modesty, to render themselves more grateful to their husband's Embraces; So public Ministers can hardly pay the endeavours they owe to their country, without exchanging for worldly Policy a great part of that candour which should be current in the more sacred Commerce of honest and religious men. Nor can any expect less hope of forgiveness in relation to such as by these oblique means advance the preservation of God's people, than the Midwives of Egypt may be supposed to have had, who purchased themselves Houses by such uncertain Protestations, as, if extended on the Rack of a nice Scrutiny, could not choose but confess, and appear to all, little better than Lies. Few human actions can be separated from the dross of Deceit; only such are of best esteem, as carry the greatest mixture of Charity; which makes me humbly conceive, this learned man deserves less censure: since such Princes only as Jerchoam (whose Interest is always to damnify others in order to their own preservation) and not their Instruments, may justly be said to cause Israel to sin.  
His was no new design, but in all ages projected by the most faithful Historians, who make it their business to personate and represent the behaviours of Princes, though never so undecent; and did ever purchase the more applause, according to the greater or less faculty they had to do it to the life. Neither can the strictest Religion condemn the Speculation of ill, without betraying her Professors, if not herself: For with what vast disadvantage should a good David cope with a son of Belial, were there not prudent Hushai's to countermiae the Insidies of wicked Achitophel's, and to learn men in power the art to catch their wily Neighbours in their own Traps? Nor do we find his Directions shunned in a less public Commerce than that of Princes, since it lies not out of the way of Instance to prove, some sharp inveyers against Machiavelli have attained to Church-Preferments, under the favour of worse or the same Principles, Alexander the sixt ascended to the Papacy.  
Do any lay obscenity to the charge of Albertus, or is he not rather styled the Great, for having so plainly set open the Closet of Nature? If any sort of men have reason to tax this Author, they are only Kings and Persons in power: For as it is the custom of light women, imperiously to blame all broad expressions of what they captivate their Servants affections by; so Statesmen may with more show of Justice, complain of the publication of such axioms, that being undiscovered, their use might be with more secrecy and success.  
Neither doth any greater Reproach redound to him from such as pervert them to the prejudice of others, than to a Fencer, if his Scholars make use of his skill in the destruction of their Friends: It being only his aim to teach them how to guard themselves, and resist other that shall, contrary to the Laws of God, Nature, and Probity, endeavour to assault them.  
Ignorance and lack of Experience in the customs of other Nations are the Parents of these spurious Censures; for had they been where he writ, these Documents would be no more admired, than the most monstrous of those chins we observe in England, are, in comparison of some to be found at the feet of the Alps.  
Neither will a small abatement appear in his Charge, if the days he lived in be seriously considered. His misfortune was, to be contemporary with Pope Alexander the sixt, and of intimate acquaintance with his Son Caesar Borgia: And what these were, is sufficiently apparent to men versed in Story: a study such proclaim themselves ignorant of, that can so bitterly exclaim upon Machiavelli: For were they conversant with the procedures of Superlative Powers, his Rules would seem rather impertinent, and below the practice of Princes, than to deserve such severe reproofs; the sting of which lies in their own ignorance, not the more useful Knowledge, they condemn.  
No Age abounded more with Action, or showed the instability of worldly Honours plainer than that he writ in: Therefore from a man wholly conversant in Court-employments (where it is thought a Lunacy to look beyond the second Causes, or to act upon the ●edit of any higher Providence than their own) worse things in reason might be expected, than his, which are really no other than the History of wise Impieties, long before legible, and since imprinted with new Additions in the hearts of every ambitious Pretender; yet He undergoes a Censure equal with those that commit far greater wickedness, than his or any Pen else is able to express.  
Divers Estates, in Italy, did in his time desire, or actually change their Lords: A junctore opportune to teach nothing so naturally, nor require any thing more necessary than aphorisms of Policy. For Naples was torn on't of the house of Aujon, by Ferdinand, and the people oppressed under Father and Son. Lodowic took the dukedom of Milan from young Galeas, with the like treachery as Francis Sforza, Father to Galeas, had done from the Dukes of Orleans.  
He saw the Descent of the French into Italy winked at by Pope Alexander the fixed, in expectation of raising an House for his Son Caesar, out of the gleanings of the French King's Conquest; In which he prayed without his Beads, being so far out, in the account, as that after Charles had got a large share in Italy (through the mediation of the jealousy of Princes, no less than the Discontent of the People, arising from the uneasy posture they lay in, so as all Changes were considered with delight) he entered Rome, forced His holiness into St. Angelo, from whence, after some time, he came out swearing to such Capitulations, as the victorious King was pleased to proffer him: And though at his reception, the French King kissed his foot, yet he durst not trust to his single Infallibility, but took his Son Caesaer for an Hostage; and to hide it from the Envy of other Catholic Princes, he covered his detention with the title of an embassy, still to reside near him in token of Amity. But, not long after, Caesar procuring an Escape, his Father, contrary to his Oath, contracted a League against the French; so much to the prejudice of that kingdom's affairs, as it may not only excuse Machiavelli, but all writers of politics, if they labour to abate the faith of Princes, in relation to the strictest Stipulations made with Neighbours, found seldom observed, but broken as oft as kept by absolute Powers, to the irreparable loss of the weaker Party: Whereas an error in private Persons may be expunged by an aftergame, or helped by complaint, &c. Remedies too weak to cure the Wounds of Princes, who in such cases are saved only by their unbelief, and seldom perish, but through unadvised confidence, in giving too much credit to the Protestations of less religious performers of Covenants; which rise and fall; not according to the more constant Standard of Religion, but the various success of worldly occasions: And he that knows not how rare a Commodity Probity is, in the Market of Princes, is no fit Reader, much less a competent Judge of Machiavelli.  
Leagues, Truces, Compacts, and Peace, are become so cracked and invalid, through a daily miscarriage in performance, as they serve for little better use, then to buy in smaller Territories, such as Lorraine and the lesser Cities and Principalities in Italy and Germany, that have little else to trust to, but the promises of Protection they receive from more Potent Monarchs, which they know would devour them, but out of dread of each other: Therefore bound by the strongest reason of State, to balance them upon the access or desertion of every fortune good or bad.  
Which makes Oaths among statesmen, upon a true survey, to signify nothing; at best, more danger than profit: Binding only such, as, in relation to Impotency or Honesty, stand in least need; And becoming, like juggler's Knots, no ways astrictive to the more Potent, who are ever able to elude them by slights, or break them by power. Now since Italy, for whose Meridian he calculated his advices, consists, for the most part, of weak pieces, it shows him more excusable, if not commendable, in fitting them so accurately to their practice and conveniency. And till all Kings agree (which is never to be expected) to keep their Stipulations and Covenants, you cannot think it reasonable that a Subject to the Duke of Florence should have advised his Patron to begin; so contrary to the examples of those times, as it was known, the Pope did then contract an Amity with the Grand signior, which, in Charity, may be thought he meant not to observe, though for his sake, he suffered himself to be hired to poison his Brother (fled into Christendom for fear of tasting the fate of the rest, after his Father's death) and might have been of great advantage to any. other that had designed to abate the Ottoman Empire: Now after the breach of Faith, so contrary to the promise made to this poor Infidel, at his being put into his hands: and his holiness's own interest, in case the Tunke had envaded Europe, it cannot be more passion than discretion, to condemn Machiavel for his seasonable Advice in relation to the Oaths of Princes.  
After all this, he saw Charles the French King dose Italy, with the like facility he had gained it, all the advantages he might have made being snatched from between his legs, by the Catholic King. And the Pope and his Son, by mistake, poisoned with the same Bottle of Wine, prepared by themselves for others; by which the Father was taken away presently, but the Son, fortified with Youth and Antidotes, had leisure to live and see, what he had gotten, torn out of his possession, and himself forced to fly to his Father-in-law, the King of Navarre, in whose service he was murdered.  
It were heartily to be wished, that unlawful practices were only vendible in Italy, and not the traffic of all the Courts in the known world: where the marks, the Text hath set upon Jeroboam, who (according to the Dialect of England, for I find it not so elsewhere) may be styled, The Machiavel of the Jews, cannot scare Princes out of the same path: For what King hath failed to set up altars at Bethel and Dan, when their power is in danger, by the people's going to Jerusalem? When Saul was but a Subject, he sought to the Prophet for his father's Asses, but after his assumption to the Throne, a Witch is consulted, about the success of a battle. Christ saith, Not many great, &c. are called: mens' outsides, at Court, are soft, but their hearts (within) seared and hard.  
Pride is the root of all evil; which Princes do not only foster in themselves, but water by preferments in all others they find able to promote the ends of it: whose effects cannot be comprised in a narrower circle, than the whole mass of Impieties, Ambition is able to commit: That prompted Phocas to kill his Master the Emperor; Caesar to ruin the most glorious republic ever the Sun saw; It teacheth Children to pull undecently the crowns from their father's Heads; it is this that fills Hell with souls, Heaven with Complaints, and the Earth with blood; It made Charles the fifth, to arm himself against him, be believed, if he believed any thing, to be the Vicar of our Saviour, and would have led him in triumph with Francis the French King, made his Prisoner the same year by a like fate of War: Neither did Philip the second do less than mingle the blood of his then only Son Charles, with the great quantity he spilt upon the face of Europe; yet his thirst unsatisfied, he set a new world abroach in America, which he let run, till it was as empty of people, as himself of pity. Are not the Heads of Nations presented by Historians, like that of the Baptist in Chargers of blood? Nay what are Chronicles less than Registers of Murders & projects to bring them about, to the best advantage of ambitious Pretenders? Yet none are so severely blamed that writ them.  
I would not be so far mistaken, as to be thought to apologise for tyrannical Principles and practices, knowing they render both Doers and Sufferers miserable: my aim being only to prove; that if Machiavelli stood legally indicted, he could, not be condemned by those at the helm in any State, who in all ages were his peers, & could not therefore in equity take up a stone against him. Bad advice, without Execution, hurts only the Giver: Besides, I cannot believe, the generality of those that cry out upon him, in public, ever saw or read his Writings, but take their Clamour upon trust, as they do against Julian, styled the Apostate, how truly, I leave to such as are better able to judge, than thousands of men so impudent as to extend incomparable Wits upon the erring Rack of Common Fame, in imitation of their ignorant' Ancestors, who looked upon mathematicians as Conjurers; though wisdom hath justified these her Children so far, as to inform the world, that no Learning is a greater enemy to falsehood than theirs.  
Yet Machiavelli is so modest as to ask, Who had not rather be Titus then Nero? But to him that will be a Tyrant, he proposeth a way least prejudicial to his temporal Estate: As if he should say, Thou art already at defiance with Heaven, therefore to preserve thee in an earthly power, no mean is left but to be perfectly wicked, a task not higherto performed, no not by the worst of Usurpers; it being as far beyond example, that any Tyrant hath done all the mischief requisite to his own and children's safety, as that the best of Kings have, in any age, put in execution all the good. Now of the first he proposeth Caesar Borgia, for the most absolute pattern, who used all Artifices to removeevery impediment standing between him and his desires, but his own being sick at the time of his Fathe'rs death, which perplexed his affairs so, as he could not bring in a Pope of his own Faction; for want of which; his so well-built designs/ as he fondly supposed) fell to the ground, as most of their do, that prosecute Empires by oblique means; into whose lap Divine Justice not seldom throws Destruction, or some louder Discontents, that over-vote the pleasure, Ambition takes in the accomplishment of her ends.  
But since it is sometime the will of God (for Reasons best known to himself) to give a happy success to bad means wisely contrived, why should this Florentine be so bitterly inveyed against, who cannot be denied but to have had at least as virtuous Principles, for a Member of the Roman Church, as Alexander the sixt, that was Head of it? with whom all Impieties were as familiaras the air he breathed in, so far, that it could not be so well guessed, when he spoke true or false, as by the abundance of Oaths he used when he meant to deceive.  
Worldly wisdom is recommended to us in the person of the unjust Steward; &, I pray, what doth Machiavelli say more of Caesar Borgia, but that he was a perfect Tyrant? And if he presume so far on your (better supposed) Honesty, as to propose him for an Example, yet it is still of evil; and what fitter pattern can there be for an Usurper, than one of his own Coat.  
Neither are the Rules he lays down, waved by the best of men if wise; for who executes not ingrateful actions, by Deputies, acceptable in Person? And all these his Documents he gives only to a Prince; for had he assigned this practice to a Son, or any else circumscribed in a narrower room than a kingdom, he might be more justly condemned: But undertaking to make a Grammar for the right understanding the Dialect of Government, why is he blamed for setting down the most general Rules, and such as all Statesmen make use of, either to benefit themselves or hurt others? That they make no conscience of falsehood, is manifest by Lewis the eleventh, that learned Father in kingcraft who pronounced him ignorant of the way to live, that knew not how neatly to deceive.  
That Breach of Faith in private Persons, is not only destructive to well-being but also damnable, he cannot deny: but Princes pretend larger Charters in relation to a more universal commerce; which they extend to ambassadors, & Ministers of State; as counting all things honourable that are safe: & if this be an evil, it is the Kings, and no way curable, but by the King of Heaven.  
To conclude, a Body politic is like that of a Man, which when it is altogether, shows outwardly a beautiful and comely sight; but search into the entrails from whence the true Nourishment proceeds, and little is to be found but Blood, Filth and Stench: The truth is, Machiavelli is observed to have raked deeper in this, than his Predecessors, which makes him smell, as he doth, in the nostrils of the nice and ignorant; whereas those of more Prudence and Experience, know it is the most natural savour of the Court, especially where the Prince is of the first Head; of which, such as come in by Succession may abate much.   

OBSERVATIONS Upon the King of Sweden's Descent INTO GERMANY.  
WIthin an Age or two, sometimes more, sometimes less, according as the World is inclined to happiness or Infelicity there hath still risen up some Ambitious Pretender or other, that hath laboured to build himself a Name by the effusion of human Blood: And these offering fine subjects for Discourse and Romances, are by the ancients styled Heroe's, by the Moderns, conquerors, and men of high spirits. The first of these we hear of, is Nimrod, branded by God himself; To him Alexander, Caesar, and innumerable others succeeded, who for the most part stand highly registered in historical calendars, because they afford good Pens an easy way to render themselves immortal by a neat expression of their Butcheries; when indeed they both deserve rather the curse of mankind, the one for doing, the other for recommending to Posterity such cruel examples, without giving them the true name of wol-fish Ambition which all merit, who infest others Territories out of no more pious reason than Augmentation of Empire. The principal Errand, however palliated (to purchase Partakers) with more plausible and gilded mottoes in their Flags, which they hold out to the People. And I believe, if God had continued the King of Sweden in life and success, he had gone as high in Blood, and as deep in Devastation, as his Ancestors and Goths did in Italy, where they ruined such Monuments, as Time could not have, yet demolished, but that she received assistance from their barbarous hands. And now I have set him under his natural colours, I am bold to maintain, that he that looks to the end of his Prospective, shall see his Actions reach beyond the Darings of all (in that kind) that ever went before him●●● may appear by these Circumstances.  
1. He did not fall on men drowned in sloth & Luxury, but on a Prince whose Prudence was lately wakened with the loss of a Crown & his people's valour new whetted by regaining it: Being so far from wanting all necessaries for War, that, besides new ones of his own, he was Master of all such Magazines, as were provided by the Elector and his party: So as it may with reason be believed, that if the Swede's little finger had been in the endeavour to lessen the Austrian Family, when the Palsgrave put in his hand, the King, long before his death, had possessed the imperial Throne.  
No party (in any extant Relation I have seen) is heard to call him in: All the Forces he had, or could raise, appearing to the world as inconsiderable; till he had showed them such a Miracle, as a puissant Army upon one Horse. After whom they ran to gather up the spoil, who, till then, had their heels shackled with Caesar's Successes.  
3. The Duke of Saxony, the most potent Prince of the Protestant party, had no stroger Title to his Estate, than what he derived Froncaesars' power who had placed him there for the like fault, in his Elder Branch (which yet remained in being to claim his right) he must have fallen into, had he yielded succour or assistance to the Swedish Crown.  
4. He had seen the King of Denmark coming on the like errand, baffled; A Prince inferior to him in little but Valour and Temperance; having the Sound at command, not to be over-matched with any advantages the Swede could properly have called his own.  
5 The jealous hatred, this and all other Nations have to these Northern people, as desirous by nature to better their Heaven, with an encroachment upon neighbour's, that live under a more auspicious Sun.  
6. The new Protests of Fealty made by the Princes & Hanse Towns to the Austrian Family, procured by his late Victories; the terror of which had so cooled the zeal of the people, and evaporated the heat they formerly were in to regain their Liberty.  
7. The assurance he had, that James of England, who refused to hear his own Honour and the cries of his Children, would never listen to the voice of a Stranger, that had no better Cards to show for his future success, than Valour and good Conduct, in which the old man had as little Faith as Knowledge.  
8. The Hollanders, his most considerable Friends could not help him, but by way of Diversion; being far off both in respect of distance and quality of their Power; the States chief strength lying in Ships, no ways serviceable to the Swede in his Inland expeditions: And to counterpoise this, as if Fate had renounced all assistance but his own, the Duke of Lorain had cast himself blindfold into the Arms of the Spaniard; with whom was as madly joined the French King's Brother, both in Alliance and Person at that time very considerable, in regard of the known weakness of the K. of France his body, & the surmises of his Sterility, thought to be supplied by the Cardinal's industry.  
9 He could not expect such cordial help from France, as a natural Prince of Germany; because upon success he was ready to assume the Title of Emperor to himself; the only bait likely to draw in the most Christian King: Neither could that Nation be assured, that, his ends attained in Germany, he might not be prompted by his good fortune to invade them; Ambition swallowing all opportunities of gaining, without the taste of any former obligations. And for the French King's being chosen by the Reformed Prince's Head of the union; He knew that King looked upon it, rathers as a scorn put upon James of England, for his neglect, than as an honour done to himself; the Germans being wholly compelled to it by necessity, in that juncture of occasions.  
10. For Money, accounted by all the only oil, able to make the Engines of War move, he could not have much, being numbered among the poorest Kings in Europe. And to make this defect the more impossible to be dispensed with, he knew the Emperor like a Colossus, had not only a leg of Iron in Germany, but one of Gold in Spain to assist it upon the least offer of any motion to offend him.  
11. The best he could expect at first (till success had made him formidable) from the Landgrave Van Hess, Witenberg & the rest of the meaner Princes, was a modest Neutrality: Or if they were so mad as to rush themselves into a sudden declaration for him, there was a large compensation made to the other side, by the unseigned assistance of the Duke of Bavaria, who had his affection newly purchased by the rich donative of the Palatinate, together with the principal Lay. Electorate; which could hold no longer good, than the Emperor was maintained in a Superlative power,  
12. It is true, that Wallestin and the Emperors Veteran Militia had parted from the last Action with some discontent: But this is so ordinary at the Disbanding of Armies, when there is no farther use of them, that it could not infuse so deaf an ill Spirit into the generality of the soldiery, but that the sound of the next Advance money would soon cast it out: And, one to command in chief was not hard to be found, where the late Combustions had created so large a choice.  
Had he been beaten, or sneaked out of the Action, as Denmark did, such Reasons might have been upbraided to him, as rashly neglected: But since he was able to break through them all, they multiply the weight of stronger of his own, which led him on against these; not to be found but in his own Head, and the confidence he had of his Conduct & Valour; doing many things wherein appeared a Hand more powerful than Fortune's; who was not able to make herself Mistress of his Sword, but by taking away his Life: And that done, Victory had been so much his that it could not be denied to his dead carcase.  
If the strength of the Enemy adds to the Conquest: who could cope with a stronger, & upon more disadvantages? so as who ever reads the Advisoes of those times, shall find that the King of Sweden made, not only Rome, but Constantinople, to tremble; the Turk standing in such admiration of his Valour, that he lost his activity, and did not only forbear to make inroads into Germany, which upon less occasions he used to do; But gave off all thoughts of offending others, as if he feared he should have work enough to defend himself.  
And had the Swedish Sword made as deep impressions in his Empire, as it left in the German, they would have been looked upon as Miracles; And, instead of Antichrist (which by reason of his success, some Catholics fondly called him) he would have been styled, The Champion of the gospel.  
All the advantage I can find the King had, out of himself, was the Emperor's Ignorance of that Common Lesson, so often repeated to the Prejudice of the wisest Princes; That Slighted parties are followed with the greatest train of inconveniences, in relation to such as despise them.  
Now if men esteem of Soldiers, by the quantity of Blood and Land they have wasted, King Philip the second of Spain, will outgo them all, in his Conquest of Peru, and the rest of those weak people: But if Reason may be heard, the least part of Germany asketh more difficulty to reduce it, than both the Indies, or all that Alexander and his like are able to boast of.   

A DISCOURSE UPON PISO and VINDEX, Who both conspired the Death of NERO, Though with a contrary success.  
PISO a nobleman borne, beloved of the People, drawn into the Action rather out of the persuasion of others, than his own affection, associated with the choicest Wits in the Roman Empire, followed by the bravest Spirits, and armed with pretences that were proof against all the darts Reason or Religion could cast at them; yet miscarried in the midst of these Advantages, falling soon after into the same Grave, he had most justly measured out for Nero,  
The foundation of whose ruin was laid by Vindex, that had no stronger materials to work his destruction, than what he hammered out of his own invention, & the advantage he took from the love of a broken Legion, no way considerable in respect of the rest of the Prince's Forces, that stood at this time firm to him, having had their affections newly warmed by divers Largesses and a daily Impunity; stronger engagements in such corrupt times, than all the virtue & piety incident to flesh.  
It's true, Vindex never lived to see the effect of his brave attempt, as the most stately fabrics are commonly least enjoyed by those that build them: Yet the Reasons why his beginnings did succeed, rather than Piso's, may be some of these.  
1 Of which the first lies hid in the dark Book of Fatality, where all things are kept from perishing till they are arrived at the utmost period Providence hath set them; which is for that time as constant in the preservation of the Instruments of her wrath, as the Dispensers of her clemency: But when the critical minute, appointed for their destruction, is come, they lie level with their feet, whose hands before were not able to reach them  
2. The manner of Piso's attempt, which was to assassinate Nero: An endeavour no less indecent for men of Honour, than unproper for a Tyrant; who as he is Enemy to all, so ought he to perish by the hands of all; which, by a Clandestine dispatch, had not only lost the pleasure, but the example of their Revenge. Neither was it in any degree of possibility likely to be concealed; & therefore the harder to succeed, having been communicated to so many, and of so different tempers, who out of hatred to others or love to themselves, could not choose but reveal it.  
3. As the body of Man, be it never so sound, is maintained in being by contention of humours, the blood flying to the heart upon any sudden assault: But if a Bruise be made in a remote place, it falls not out so, but affords the virulent matter leisure together. Thus are bad Princes with more ease and safety destroyed by a remote and open hostility, than a sudden and private attempt: For, near, men see daily so many effects of their cruelty, that they are afraid, studying more their own safety than the freedom of the Common wealth.  
Besides the familiarity with Tyranny makes it so domestical, that those within the Verge of the Court know not well how to live without it: Therefore they must be tender of his preservation, to maintain their own power, having rendered themselves either actively or passively as odious to the people as their Master.  
4. As any thing that ministers occasion of discourse, the farther it extends, the more sound it makes; and he that gathereth Snow, hath a Ball proportionable to the distance he rolls it in: So those that cry out a far off, upon the abuses of the Court, do not only draw attention from some about them, but tickle the ears, and stir up the Spirits of all such as have felt, or do fear the weight of Oppression. Nay, such persons themselves, as at a nearer distance, would, out of hope or fear, labour to quench it, will, a great way off, look upon a combustion, with delight: Novelty being of that nature (especially following things ill) that it raiseth more expectation of good, than it can destroy.  
5. Open force doth assure the malcontents, that there is pretence made of no more than what is cordially intended; to which the soft whispers of a few confederates cannot enough persuade: It being the ordinary practice of tyrannical governors, by such instruments to entrap others for whose lives and estates they long. But in this case, Report, that represents nothing in its due proportion, instead of the danger that is, musters up all that may be: And in this the concerned Tyrant seconds her; who looking through the false Spectacles of guilt & fear, reads his fortune worse, than possibly it is written, and above prevention; so far, as though Hope (the last friend in such adversities) cannot quite be shook off, she fixeth upon lower objects, than the continuance of his former power. This flattered Nero, that though they drove him out of Rome, yet for pity, or to satisfy his Party, they might be drawn to leave him Egypt quiet: As foolish an opinion in him, as it had been madness in them, to think any power meet to be left in the hands of an exafperated Prince; whose Revenge cannot be buried but in his grave, especially if it respects his Subjects: For though himself might be of a nature to forgive it, those about him cannot, but will be ready to incite him to take it upon all occasions.  
6. Where there are many that conspire, the apprehension of any one will soon detect the rest; whereas the like resolution taken by a single person, and not communicated, seldom fails, being secure from all fear, and hastened by no accident but what opportunity presents.  
7. Ill counsel is rather to be harkened unto, than none at all; there being a possibility to mend it with better: whereas a dull suspension loseth time, a thing it recoverable; and doth not only assure the Adversaries, but disheartens Friends, giving them leisure to listen to the free offers of the contrary Party.  
It may be observed in the fall of Nero, that the meanest Conspiracy is not to be slighted. For in a crazed Common wealth, the least jangling will bring the multitude about the ears of their governor; who, having offended all, knows not whom to trust, that hath any power with the people: And this perceived by his own; they desert him, or by his destruction labour to purchase their particular safety: For what hope can another have in him, that distrusts himself?  
He that hath lost the love of his people, cannot be certain of his present safety or moderate ruin when it comes; for the most part sudden in regard of his own knowledge, though presaged and wished by all the world besides. No prudence can maintain a Tyrant long in power: for though he may divert the people from making inspection into his disposition, by exposing his Agents to their mercy; yet at last the succession of the same abuses will direct them to the true cause; which being once discovered to lie in his Nature, nothing he doth shall please, but he suspected for more evil, than it can in probability produce: The world's Opinion exercising no less authority over Kings, than meaner men. Besides, the delivering up men in Authority to the rage of the People, like letting of Blood, may stop the progress of a present Fever, but much weakens the power of the Prince, to resist a future distemper.  
After the disorders of a Tyrant are laid before the eyes of the people, it turns thousands his enemies in an instant, that out of custom or Conscience prayed for him the day before. Who are more solicitous to advance his destruction, than careful to choose a successor that might be fit to govern. Their Discretion extending no farther than their Nourishment, which they only receive fronhand to mouth. therefore all the use that can be made of this popular Monster is, during their first heat: For, their expectations deloded (being incapable of honour or reward) they are ready, with the Dog, to lick up the same Nero they had vomited out. And, that it is easier to expel a Tyrant, than to find a Prince in all points worthy to succeed, appeared by Galba: And by Otho we find, when the multitude are up in swarms, they care not, what Bush they light on.  
If Seneca had got the imperial Diadem from under Piso, it is uncertain, whether he had been able to have kept it: virtue having showed herself as great an enemy to a fresh Family as Vice, to whom Cruelty is for the most part more necessary than Clemency, especially towards the Nobility, who are observed to carry the most natural affection to the old line, that first wound them up to honour.  
I would be loath to blame Seneca wrongfully, though the immense Treasure he left behind him doth, not only, by consequence, accuse him of too much covetousness, as some Authors are bold to lay Ambition to his charge; which the worse became him, because unpossible to be satisfied but at the cost of his Maker. But admit this Stoic in outward Profession, though an Epicure in his Gardens, &c. to be as good as he desired to be thought, yet if he had not restored to the Romans their lost liberty, but sought to establish the Government in his own house, he had only imitated their Charity, that take a Slave out of one cruel Family to put him into another, that might in a small time prove as bad: or if he had governed moderately all his life, it had been like the good day in a fever, which is so short and uncertain, that it takes away all taste of Ease and Delight, &c.   

A DISCOURSE Upon the Greatness & Corruption OF The Court of Rome.  
THere is nothing, idleness and Peace makes not worse, Labour and Exercise better: The Tree that stands in the Weather, roots best, and deepest; The running Water, and air that is agitated, are most wholesome and sweet. The Cause of this may be deduced from God's eternal Decree, That nothing in Nature should remain idle and without motion: This also extends to the Children of Grace, who go more nimbly about the works of their heavenly Calling, being driven by the storms of Persecution, than when they have nothing but the smooth voice of Prosperity to allure and persuade them. The Martyrs professed Christ more boldly, amidst the flames of the hottest Persecutions, than we dare do in the Sunshine of the gospel.  
God never made a larger promise of his continuing Truth in any place, than to the Nation of the Jews: Yet how often do we find it buried in the rubbish of Errors and Impiety? Their Kings and Priests either teaching, or at least tolerating Idolatry: The Church being driven into so dark and narrow a corner, as the Prophet Elias could not discover a righteous man: Neither was Jerusalem in better plight, which had the Temple, and in that the Oracles of God, in possession. For if it did scape profanation during the worser days of Solomon his son Rehoboam saw it plundered, and in most of his successors reigns it lay neglected or misimploied. So that if a stranger, led by the glorious title the Jews had, to be the people of God, should have conformed himself to their worship, he had scarce mended his marked, though he were before never so great an Idolater. Yet God never gave a larger Charter to any Church; part of it being contained in these words, I have hallowed this House which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever. This proves God's Promises conditional, and that outward Felicity seldom accompanies inward Integrity; or if they have the luck to meet, they presently part; men's hearts being ordinarily to narrow to entertain goodness and worldly pomp.  
The Churches we read of in the New Testament, with whom the Holy Ghost was so familiar, as to direct particular Letters unto them, are not now to be found. Only Rome brags, she remains the same in purity of Doctrine, though for Manners she is as corrupt as her elder Sister Sodom, so that if Italy be a Circle of Impiety, the Court of Rome is the centre. Yet these plead their Title with God himself, grounding it upon the tottering Foundation of worldly felicity: Forgetting that it is against the example of all times, that any Nation, much less a Church, should so long sail under the merry gale of earthly prosperity, & not long ere this discharge herself of that rich lading she was fraught with all, when she traded for souls, under the Fathers of the Primitive times. There having been such a succession of imperious greatness in that chair, as Rome is now more like the proud & triumphant chapel of Antichrist, than the poor and militant Church of God. All the calamities that have of late fallen upon her, may be said to have dropped from her own Ambition, in seeking to enlarge her power at the cost and prejudice of others, and therefore more naturally to be styled Punishments than Persecutions.  
You cast your eyes on no Story where the villainy of Popes is not at large discovered; who can then believe that the pure Spirit of God should endow with infallibility of judgement Monsters so visibly corrupted? We find, the Holy Ghost did under the Law hate and forbid all impurity though in mere outward Ceremony; how then should he under the brighter light of the gospel, suffer himself to be poured out of one unclean vessel into another; beginning again with a Conjurer where he left with a Sodomite.  
Yet they say, Rome is the true Church, out of which there is no Salvation: Not remembering that the holy Scripture, Charity and Reason tell us, God's Church is as universal as the Earth; and shall one day be gathered together under Christ the Head. Now in the mean time, that harmony of Opinions they pretend to, may be rather wished, than hoped for. In Paul's time some made conscience of eating things sacrificed to Idols, others of Circumcision; yet he condemns them not for schismatical. And it is but a weak evasion to say, He bare with them in regard of the infancy of the Church: For in these days of knowledge she is as infantine in some places, as she was then: where he that taught had the strength of Miracles to justify his Doctrine, which these want, and are driven to this shift in lieu of them, to cozen the people with such as are supposititious Now if there be no salvation out of the Church of Rome, not to speak of ourselves, &c. what Charity is it to think all the Water cast away, that is poured in Christ's name, upon the faces of those Christians in Greece, Rushia, and remoter places, to which this age's curiosity & covetousness hath taught them the way? This makes me think there is no room for such monopolising Opinions: But I leave this to Divines, returning to the Pope.  
After the Piety of the first Bishops of Rome had purchased them Reputation, and that God had not only opened the hearts of Potentates to receive the gospel, but their hands to build and endow Churches: They being advanced first to the Dignity of Arch bishops, thence to Patriarchs, & so at last to the Papal Supremacy (a name derived from Pater Patriarcharum, which for brevity's sake was written Pa Pa) exchanged their Piety for Promotion. It being the custom of frail Humanity, to conclude goodness at the beginning of Felicity.  
For taking the advantage of new kindled zeal, wisely observed by them to be the hottest, the Popes were able to lead King and People whither they pleased, & in the interim had the opportunity to proportion what power or riches they thought fit for themselves.  
Now as Policy is not able to keep long the right way to Heaven, so at last it led them into a world of Impieties, by encroaching, under pretence of Religion, upon higher Jurisdiction and Power than could naturally belong to Subjects: which wanting strength of their own to maintain, they sheltered them under the Donation of such Princes, as had no better titles to their crowns, than was derived from an usurpation over the weakness of those in former possession; glad of the Pope's Protection, because they found the generality of men, either out of Religion or Ignorance, made their estimate of the truth or falsehood of the Titles, and legality of the Claims of Princes, according as they were more or less current in the opinion of their clergy, whose judgements depended wholly on the Bishop of Rome, who afforded his approbation to their illegitimate Titles, out of no weaker Reason of State, than they at first desired it: Laying up with all diligence their Petitions and his Grants, to remain as Precedents for their posterity to be guided by: Therefore it is no wonder, why these Tyrants & Usurpers should strengthen the power of the Pope, since the foundation of their own was laid upon the exorbitant excess of that of Rome: which is so improved, as the Emperor hath, for many ages, received his crown from their Successors, to whom his Predecessors had formerly given the mitre.  
The cloud of Ignorance, that did then cover the face of the world, was a great help to keep their juggling undiscovered: For that little Learning extant in those times was wholly included in the monastical clergy, (the Laity being intent upupon nothing but Wars and Pleasure) so as they had opportunity to make all Books and Records speak in their favour; which being manuscripts, & so but in few hands, it was no hard matter to corrupt them. Besides being prohibited Marriage, they did neither respect nor acknowledge other Posterity or Alliance, than those to succeed in the same places, of whom they had so religious a care, as they thought none merited well of the Church, that did not leave them endowed with more Power and Immunities than they found them: Making it an Article of the faith they owed to their Profession, to suppress the Laity, & advance the clergy: And if this was the End, they esteemed no Means ill, conducing to it.  
Thus by Time, the Indulgency of good, and Necessity of wicked and illegitimate Princes, they freed their whole Society from the Jurisdiction of the temporal Magistrate, not suffering them to be liable to any punishments, but those eternal, & such as their own superiors shall think fit to lay upon them; seldom suitable to the fault, unless in case of schism from their general tenants: & in this their jealousy, no less than prudence makes them very severe. Now having purchased Ease, Honour, and Impunity, such as were poor, Guilty, or Ambitious, besides Younger Brothers, and those in Debt, entered their Fellowship; which freed them from present want, and fear of punishment for former Offences, how capital soever: And these being, for the most part, of the best natural abilities soon learned the skill, so to work on the consciences of Dying people, and those affrighted with their sins, that the Church was left heir of the best part of Christendom. And taking encouragement from the blind zeal then reigning, (which till Printing had opened a way to Knowledge, rendered all things possible unto them) they did not only make use of such profitable Errors, as their fore fathers left them, but brought in new ones of their own contriving, gilding them with the spendid titles of things necessary & of religious use; Amongst, which were Images, brought in at first only to encourage others to imitate their constancy, whom they saw painted, with the manner of Death they had been put to by the persecutors of those Times: Of the cross, wore anciently only for a Cognisance, they have made a Tutelary God, looking no higher in their Extremities: The blessed Saints were scandalised with the Worship given to them & their relics: whom, in a full imitation of the Heathen, they made Protectors of their cattle, and smaller Pleasures, as Hawking, Hunting, &c. And because the Bible did not, in their opinions, afford a store sufficient for all uses, they have added a number more, as may be found in the Legend.  
To the Monks, and all sorts of Friars, the Popes have successively given immense privileges and Indulgences, wisely considering, they gain them victories, without the Sword, & are a strong & faithful Militia, fed & paid by the respective Princes of Christendom, who, though they know they depend on a foreign Power, yet few dared to explode them: so sharp and terrible was their fear of the Knife, and more deeply wounding dart of Excommunication. And because, in case all Kings should have joined, it might have gone hard with his holiness, be kept them employed abroad at the Holy War, or at Enmity one with another, or at least at Unity with himself, by maintaining their usurped Titles, or dispensing with their Incestuous or Adulterous Marriages. But finding, in these latter days, Knowledge hath exposed him to a Reformation, and that Princes would no longer make the vindication of his Temporalities, or what, under the notion of Spirituals, he is pleased to call His, a matter of Religion: and not daring to alter any thing formerly admitted by his Predecessors, for fear of falling under this undeniable Conclusion, That he which hath erred in one thing, may in more: He most politicly called in the Inquisition, which turneth no less to the profit of the Secular Prince (who hath all he dislikes condemned by an Authority uncapable as well of Envy as Revenge) than the Preservation of the ecclesiastics, and his holiness's power from falling under ordinary Dispute: which Policy he borrowed of his younger Brother Mahumet, whose errors remain to this day in Credit, because it is death to question the Truth of them.  
No man can say the Pope imitates Peter, except in denying his Master; who following the example of Christ, did in humility wash his Companion's feet, which this doth in jest, during the holy Week, as they call it, but suffers his own to be, in earnest, kissed by Kings & Emperors. It is true, he styles himself the Servant of Servants, but is content to be worshipped under the title of Lord of Lords: Nay some of his Flatterers have given him the name of a God, yet with Paul & Barnabas, he doth not rend his clothes, saying, He is a man subject to infirmities, as others are; but rather seeks to seem worthy of this Title, by proclaiming to the world, That he cannot err, a power God hath wholly reserved to himself; or if communicated (which I will not now dispute) it is only to the Church in general, when, in his fear they shall meet to determine matters of Religion, Which is so contrary to the nature of his greatness, that no sound is so terrible to him, as that of a General Council, a thing this Age cannot hope to see free & entire, by reason of the contrary Interests of Princes, who, together with Religion, mingle their covetous and ambitious Pretences: For if such interruptions had not been, so undecent a proceeding should never have taken place, as was in the Council of Trent; where the Emperor suffered the Pope to be Party & Judge, & the Bishops berest of all power, either to propose or determine. Nor were the Plaintiffs admitted to more favour or liberty of Disputation, than to remain quiet, & hear themselves condemned; so as, in conclusion, though this Synod was desired only to abate the power & reform the abuses of the Court of Rome, it was managed by them with so much Policy, that it did rather much strengthen & confirm the exorbitant power of that See.  
The greatest things in dispute between Papist and Protestant, are matters concerning Profit or Honour, which may satisfy any not delighted with blindness, that they were brought in by the diligence of the Priests, taking advantage from the ignorance of preceding Ages.  
From all which I may conclude, that such amongst them as are wise, conversant in history, & acquainted with the present practice of the Court of Rome, are souly to be suspected of atheism: because Conscience can never be persuaded against a convincing experience: which is also made good by the irreligious Italians, from whom comes this Proverb. The nearer the Church, the farther from God: For such abhor Religion, because they see the Pope makes but a politic robe of it, taking the liberty himself to put it on or off, as becomes his occasions.   

A DISCOURSE UPON THE ELECTION OF POPE LEO the XI.  
IN the Negotiations of Cardinal Peron may be found a perfect journal of so much of the Election of Leo the Eleventh, as was possible to be known by one side; to which discourse I shall refer all those that do believe the Pope can be the true Successor of Peter: It being incongruous both to Prudence & Religion, to imagine the Holy Ghost should mingle Interests with the ambitious ends of Princes, who shun no impious means, to make him succeed, that is thought the truest friend to their Occasions. I know it is not only in the power, but the practice of God, to raise his ends out of ill means; Yet it were presumption in men to shape out his work, though he be able to fit our endeavours to his own Honour.  
But the Court of Rome seeks to make the people believe, that, notwithstanding these Considerations, after the mass of the HolyGhost is said, he is as really present in the Conclave, as he was with the eleven Disciples, when they chose a Successor to Judas, who betrayed Christ. In which they acknowledge themselves either Atheists, or presumptuous fighters against God; For if the Choice be his, how dare they interpole their mediation, or hope the French or Spanish Factions can possibly prevail; one side ever interrupting because both cannot be pleased. They have of late been made, sometimes by the other which must conclude the Holy Spirit subservient to human Endeavours, or no more friend to this Choice, than to that of the Grand signior.  
Here you may see how they labour to hire or force the HolyGhost to fix upon some such subject, as may be most auspicious to the prevalent Party; who is invoked out of Ceremony, leaving the rest to be hewed out by themselves. Before these Monarchs grew so potent, the troubles in the Conclave were rather more than less: For the Cardinals made Elections so tedious by their tousing, that sometimes the Romans, sometimes other Princes, forced them to resolve. And to avoid such constraint, they did often pitch upon Impotent men, such as for Age or Weakness were not likely to hold out long (as this Leo, who died in few weks after his assumption) during whose time the Pretenders are at leisure to concoct their designs better; which is ordinarily done by Bribes, or in case they prevail not, by poison, nay the devil is not left unsought to: So as Balzac, saith, None, on this side the alps, labour more to look well, than some of them, to seem-sickly and weak; hoping by that means to obtain the chair which is able, of a gouty Cardinal, to make a sound Pope.  
In ancient time the Bishops of Rome were chosen by the Parish Priests of that City; And how, since, Cardinals came in, is no more known, (though not ancient) than the date of many Novelties, that have most shamefully been imposed upon the Church: Yet to this day, no ecclesiastical Cardinal (for they have others) but retains among his titles, the name of one of the Parish Churches in Rome, though he be ordinarily called by his own name, or else some other bishopric or Dignity, he hath in commendam. By the institutions of a former Pope, which for shame they dare not revoke, all his Actions that gets into the chair by Simony, are null: Now what are all these sinister Endeavours, but so many several sorts of Simony? If Simon Magus had attempted by Policy, mediation of Friends, or Flattery, to have obtained the Gift of the HolyGhost, should his fault have been less, or not rather greater; Money being the richest offer he could make, and most suitable to the Apostles wants, which he saw others, endued with the same Spirit, daily cast at their feet? And if this be granted, when had the Church a Head able to utter any thing but falsehoods, or Nullities; All Popes having, for many years, entered at one of these Gates? In Civil Kingdoms, the crown is to be obeyed without questioning how the Wearer came by it; but to tie the ecclesiastical power to these conditions, were to bind the Holy Ghost to the Pope's chair.  
The Bishop of Rome lays an absolute claim to an unerring Spirit; but is not able to demonstrate the time when he had it: If it were always, the Errors found inherent in the persons were uncapable of blame or retraction. Yet out of this Cloud of uncertainty, say they, the Holy Ghost dictates only to his Church, & such as deny it are heretics. If at any time he hath the Spirit of infallibility, it is, perhaps, at his first entrance into the chair, as Saul had a greater measure upon his new anointing, than in all his reign besides; yet in the Election of this Leo the XI (of the House of Medici, and before his Assumption known by the Title of Cardinal of Florence) appears no such matter, which would not have been omitted by the penner of the passages of their Conclave; being an eye witness & a Cardinal, who doth pride himself much in his fortune, & the policy both he & the French Party had used in his advance. But it may be, Paul the Fifth, who succeeded this Leo, had it, when he made so great a present to the devil, as at once to excommunicate the whole State of Venice, with all the territories belonging unto it: But this was afterwards condemned by himself as rash & inconsiderate, terms most unbefitting a thing done by God. And wise men may here justly take occasion to conclude, that no Pope doth think, or ever thought, he had a power of not erring: For if such a Spirit were an usual companion of that See, Paul the Fifth would have expected the operation of it, and not have troubled a State to so little purpose, without the assistance at least of a Revelation.  
He that desires to be informed of the illness of Modern Popes, may be abundantly satisfied, if he Consult Historians, who are not dumb in declaring the faults of the Court of Rome. The truth is, were it not for the strict (or if you will, call them pious) Lives of a few melancholic Friars, it is impossible so much wickedness should not be booted out of the world.  
Yet the Court of Rome hath as strong Supporters as Policy is able to bring, though her truest friends are Ignorance, the Inquisition, and Interests of Princes: The first lies in every particular manto reform, the second for the most part in the King of Spain, the third only in God.   

political Occasions Of the DEFECTION From the CHURCH OF ROME.  
AS some Diseases, and other Mulcts (but accidental in the first result) become, after a small Succession, hereditary to a Family; So Opinions, if once inveterate, tender their professors Ears, like those of the Adder, deaf to the wiser & more probable charms of Reason. I come just now from talking with a Papist, and find him (though a Scholar) so wrapped up in the old rags of Tradition, and inspired with so strong an Implicit Faith, that I think it had been one of the nearest things to impossible, for the Bishop of Rome to have lost so many, had he not fallen into such Errors as these.  
1. The seeking to maintain a greater show of Piety in the Church, than was suitable to human Frailty, & the comforts of Life: The friar's Habit being no less nasty than unseemly, and therefore shunned by nicet judgements & those of parts, not so capable of temptation from any thing, as Pleasure & Profit: Or if such Austerity was called for, in relation to external Zeal, (the parade of all Religions, and fit to be mustered up often in the eyes of the people) yet the generality might have been left to more decent Acoutrements, by which they had become sociable unto others, & not loathsome to themselves.  
2. Though such Austerity was exacted from the Members, the Head, and capital clergy observed not the like: which alarum'd not only their Maligners, but those of their own Coat, whose Desert or Fortune had not raised them to the same Transcendency.  
3. The admittance of Printing, unpossible but to prove disadvantageous unto those, whose strongest evidence, for the maintenance of their Power, lay in the Ignorance & Patience of the World, which this could not but be thought probable both to inform and disturb.  
4. The suffering Nations to swell into such vast Bodies, as France, Spain, &c. The most obtained under the church's pretence, which in favour to one, and malice to others, did blast Princes titles by the thunders of Excommunication, and set the people at odds with their natural sovereigns. By which Exorbitances they taught the Germans and our Henry the eight to find out a Remedy by applying to this proud flesh the powder of Reformation; the strength of which made the same Zeal, that swelled the Priests to this height, as ready to tear away the ground from under them.  
5. The mixing a desire of temporal power with what is purely spiritual, put such an allay upon their Sanctity, that it became less current, than otherwise it might have been, had they not used the Sword, which Peter only drew (& yet not without acheck) in his Master's cause, to purchase Principalities for their Children & nephews.  
6. The falling into the common Error of weaker Princes, who, to palliate some extemporary mischief, do oftentime scontract an incurable inconvenience, as was done in the case of John Husse, & Hierom of Prague: in relation to whose proceedings the Fathers in the council of Basil enacted, That No Faith was to be kept with heretics. By which they have rendered themselves incompatible with any other tenants than their own; To whom they do by this almost as much as confess, that upon the access of a power sufficient, none are to expect milder conditions, than to lay their heads upon the Block, or cast their consciences at the Pope's feet.  
7. The irrepealable Authority given to the Decrees of all approved Synods, opposeth the custom of Nature, and course of all sublunary things, whicy are apt to change; no less than true reason of State, that abhors to be shackled by any severer restraint than she is able to cast off upon approach of a greater advantage: The dispensing with an unsociable Tenent being far less prejudicial, than the continuance of it against the grain of the generality.  
8. The Pope should have removed at least so many of the Hundred Greivances, presented at the Diets, as he found all Estates concurred in the dislike of: The charge and trouble incident to the Roman Religion afflicting men's temporalities as much almost as their Falsehood could their Consciences: It being more Policy to part with things not absolutely necessary, willingly, than by constraint.  
9 The open partiality showed in the affairs of divided Princes: By which the one side is made perpetually his enemy, & the friendship of the other no longer permanent, than it receives benefit; being wise enough to see, that the same Arts and Power that are able to help now, may, upon the recoil of Interest, be as apt to hurt: All strength conjuring up jealousy in Kings, that is not absolutely at their own dispose.  
10. The ordinary & slight Provocations the Pope took to draw the dagger of Excommunication: which acquainted Princes no less with the bluntness of his Weapons, than the keenness of his Malice: By which they were taught to abate, so much as possibly they could, the reach of his power, lest it should have increased to an universal prejudice; nothing being more notorious than the Ambition of the Church, not possibly to be moderated, but by an absolute restraint, & an open discovery of the Arts used to twist the Interests of Christ with those purely their own: a medley of Colours apparent to judicious eyes: with which Religion was so dapled, that it was embraced by the most, rather out of ostentation than love, or pure zeal, and so not likely to continue long.  
11. Had he turned the edge of his ecclesiastical sword against Turks and Infidels, which he hath, since Gregory the great, chose rather to sheathe in the bosom of Christians (whose differences, especially if they entrenched upon his Supremacy, he fomented into flames) he might have enlarged the extent of his own jurisdiction by a supply of new Proselytes, who are ever fonder of their Nurses, than those whose sharper experience of the covetousness, and Ambition of the Church hath weaned from being so highly pleased with the Roman Gue-gaus. I confess it unsuitable to his Interest, to suffer all or the major part of Christendom to fall under the jurisdiction of one person, for then his power would be eclipsed, as the Moon, in Opposition; or quite lost, as the Stars upon the approach of the Sun: which arraigns him of Indiscretion, for suffering the German Empire to be Hereditary: easily to have been foreseen, when once it fell upon so powerful a Prince as Charles the V, not likely to part with any thing he had once possessed, & now too strongly rooted in the Austrian Family, ever to be eradicated but at the cost of a total subversion, either by the Turk or Lutheran Professors.  
12. The several Orders and distinct Names they gave the Friars, known to breed Emulation & Division among them; as is evident about the Conception of the V. Mary, &c. And the irreconcilable feud between the active Society of Jesus, and all the other duller Fraternities.  
13. Ceremony (though the Body of Religion, yet) is too weak to bear that stress the Priests laid upon it; who should rather have built upon faith, to which nothing is impossible: Considering withal that though external behaviour may add warmth to zeal, yet a redundancy of it doth not seldom suffocate & extinguish it, by converting it into Idolatry, which is a palpable mistake in the worship of God, and cannot long, among knowing people, be held from clamouring for a Reformation; which the Pope should ever have prevented by a hasty doing it himself: For if once undertaken by the uninterested Rabble, they will never leave, till the form of worship is bruised & beaten out of all comeliness, so as nothing can satisfy but the moulding it anew. Which the win of no single Age, much less that contained in a few Heads, is able to make complete: Church Discipline, well instituted, being the highest result of all Prudece, God hath entrusted men withal: whose materials too near scrutinized, seem to discover more Policy than Piety; by the contemplation of which men's Judgements being once dazzled, they are ever after propense to atheism, and a prejudicial jealousy of their Teachers.  
14. The Pope neglected the prudential carriage of a Miller, who being supplied with a larger stream than the conveniency of his Trade requires, suffers it to run wast, rather than endanger the subversion of the whole Engine, he hath lived so long happily by. Whereas the Pope permitted the ecclesiastics, not only to appropriate to their particular profit, all that which ignorant zeal did voluntarily & plentifully shower down upon them; but connived at the Mists and Thunders they raised in the Consciences of Dying men: By which they became coheirs almost in every Family: Forgetting that A great Booty invites Theft, at best Envy; it being unlikely, Princes should long forbear squeezing such sponges, out of awfulness to Religion, as had no better authority for their draining their Subjects, than they drew from a foreign power; owned by the most, rather out of Policy than Piety, especially since it was ordinary with his Holiness himself to make great levys upon no other reason, than to augment his own, or raise new Empires for his Sons or Nephews.  
15. The abundance of such contingencies bred a neglect of their surer & more legitimate Patrimony, consisting in Tithes & unquestioned Churchoduties; very sufficient to have maintained a number large enough for the loading the patience and conveniency of the most prudent States, without the addition of such vast Revenues, not possible to be apprehended but under the notion of things superfluous in the Church, since Christ in person never owned such Plenty, which made it seem more undecent in him that pretended to be his Vicar.  
16. Fallacies discovered in Miracles which call in question as well those anciently & truly done, as such as are reported to be new. Thus the pious Deceits our Ancestors used to bring men to salvation, are not only made Stales to catch Profit, but instrumental to Infidelity.   

A DISCOURSE IN VINDICATION OF Martin Luther.  
HE may be suspected of hypocrisy, if not atheism, that too suddenly leaps out of one Opinion into another; It being impossible for mere flesh and blood, to pull up all at once a Religion rooted by custom and Education in the Understanding, which must be convinced, before it can let in another with any cordial welcome. I speak not of the ancient and extraordinary Callings of God, but those experimented in our times, in which over much haste doth oftentimes bewray Deceit; As appeared in the Bishop of Spalatto; who in my days left Italy for fear of Paul the fifth, his enemy, and reconciled himself to the Church of England; but the old Pope being dead, and his Kinsman in the chair, he resumes his former Errors, and goes to Rome, in hope of Preferment, where contrary to promise, he dies miserably. When falsehood is fallen-out with for any other respect, than Love of Truth, it inclines to atheism, and is so far from mending the Condition of the Convert, that it renders it worse.  
None ever showed greater signs of God's Spirit, than Luther did; who observed such Gradations, as it may appear he found fall with nothing; he was not first led to by the dictates of Conscience: Falling first upon the abuse of Indulgences, too apparent an Impiety, to pass by so acute a judgement undiscovered; From this he ascended to higher Contemplations, which afforded him the opportunity to take notice of remoter and deeper Errors. His Wit & Learning having that vast advantage over the stupid Ignorance of those times, that he bare down all before him, without any other Opposition, than the contrary Faction was able to raise out of power; much weakened by the desire all Princes had, to set limits to the Pope's daily Usurpations. And as for the Books, then writ against him, they did rather shar pen, than blunt the desire of Change: For the Friars had so long enjoyed a free current of their Doctrine, without interruption, that they were more intent on the reaping of such Fruit, as grew from the Errors sown by their Predecessors, than upon Arguments to defend them. So as if Princes, that were weary of the yoke of Rome, had wanted the guidance of Luther, it is not easle to say, whither they might have wandered. And though Charles the fifth, than Emperor, to keep his subjects in obedience, did seem to discountenance the Schism (as they called it) yet he was content to shut up the Pope in the Castle of S. Angelo. Which proves his small affection, and the truth of this Tenet, that if ever Christendom falls under one Monarch, or turns into popular States, the power of the Pope will be lost, or confined to Rome; being at this day only kept up, like a shuttlecock, by the bandying of Princes.  
'Tis objected against Luther, That he was too passionate, using irreverent speeches towards some in Authority? Yet so much of this fault, as zeal leaves unexcused, may be imputed to his Education. All can be said, is, He was but a Man, and subject to Common Infirmities; And because his e'en mies do so often object this, it is strongly to be presumed, his worst fault. I could have wished, he had not married a Nun: but I believe he did it to show People, The quarrel was irreconcilable, as Absalon projected when he polluted his father's bed: And in this sense, the benefit takes away much of the blame; which lay not in the unlawfulness, but the inexpediency of the fact. And to show, God did not curse his Match (Though he might participate of the fate of other learned men, who seldom find their abilities, represented in their Issue; yet) he left three such Sons, as did not give his enemy's occasion to upbraid his memory with them.  
For the real Presence, maintained by him in the Sacrament, it doth not so much condemn his Judgement in this, as it justifies his Integrity in all the rest: He being as resolute to vindicate what he thought true, against the persuasions of his Friends, as he was against the threats and promises of his Enemies: For if any by-respect could have warped him, it would have been a desire to appease the hot Dispute, the retention of this error raised in his Own Party, wholly of his judgement but in this particular, in which Zwinglius, and the Helvetian Church did oppose him. And if this be not enough to wash him clean from the imputation of Self-ends and covetousness, the Proverb used in Germany may, That poor Luther made many rich.  
As he was protected from a number of apparent mischiefs, so the same had freed him from many hidden, in respect of the eyes of the world; it being impossible, that he, who had galled so many Grandees, should not have Revenge laid in wait for him, in every corner: Experience proving, that Kings themselves can scarce whisper against the Court of Rome, but the Knife is ready to give them a final Answer. His Death was with as little Molestation, as his Life was full: For being called to the County of Mansfield, the place of his birth, to determine a Case in controversy between two Princes of that Family, he died there in the sixty third year of his Age.  
Had the Apostles, nay our Saviour himself been alive, and maintained what Luther did, they had been persecuted by the clergy: Therefore the Crucifying of Christ is no prodigy in Nature, but daily practised: among men: For he that can find the heart to stigmatize and whip his Brother, for an Error merely in judgement, would never have spared Peter or Paul, coming with no more visible Authority than they had. But this is not the way to suppress an Heresy, since most are jealous of that opinion, which useth the Sword for her Defence; Truth having been long since determined to be most strong: And where Oppression is, there for the most part, she is supposed to be. This shows as little Discretion as Charity in such as persecute those, that may be in the Right; or; if not, shall by this means, be kept the longer in the Wrong. If a Horse starts, the more he is beaten, the harder he is kept in the way; but let him stand, & have leisure to consider what he blanched at, & he will perceive it is a Block, & so go on. Yet it is neither cruelty nor imprudence, to restrain such furious Spirits (as they do Dogs) that will bawl & fly at all they do not know: But I should be utterly against burning their Books in public, if they have once gained the light: which only adds to their price, & saves them a labour; because, if the State did not put them in credit, by their notice, they would perhaps, after a while for shame, burn them themselves. The Whip reforms not so much as he that endures it; but is taken as a triumph by the Faction, increasing their animosity, if not their number; So that in effect it proves a punishment to none but the honest and tender-hearted of the people, who cannot choose but be scandalised, to see the Image of God defaced, by cutting ears, and slitting Noses, &c. And this raiseth a strong suspicion, that the Hand of Justice would not lie so heavy only on the preciser fide, but that something inclines it that may at last turn to the subversion of the most moderate part.  
The Dutch, though they tolerate all Religions & tenants, yet none increased to their prejudice, till they strove to suppress the Arminians, who are in taste as like the Papists, as Scallions are to Onions; all the difference is, that the latter is the stronger: Yet since they have let them alone, this Opinion is observed to be less numerously attended.  
Had the Pope seasonably reformed the Error Luther discovered so apparently, in the publication of Indulgences, and rewarded him a bishopric. for his Learning and zeal, let him afterwards have said what he pleased: it would have been looked upon by the people as of no credit: who like nothing so well, as what goeth cross to the grain of Authority.  
The Lord Treasurer Cecil, having been unsufferably abused by Libels, sent for the Poet, and, after he had rattled him soundly, began to take notice of the poor fellows good parts, saying,, It might be, vexatious poverty compelled him to make use of false, though common Rumours, given out by such as hated all in Authority; To ease which he gave him 20 pieces, promising to take the first opportunity to advance him. This favour (most contrary to his expectation, who would willingly have given one ear to have saved the other) did so work with him, and the rest of the Pasquillers of the time, that, till the treasurer's death, none used the like Invectives. Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, used the like demeanour towards some Gentlemen that had laid the imputation of Sodomy to his Charge, &c.  
Clemency seldom causeth repentance in an established kingdom, or if it proves a fault, it is easily mended; Whereas Cruelty can never be recalled, raising a far greater Party out of a thirst of Revenge. than ever yet could be mustered up from the hope of Impunity.  
Therefore to conclude, since Luther alone had the power to do so much, let us not be thus severe against others, that having their zeal kindled (though perhaps at the wrong end) run madding through the world; but rather pity them, if they be in an error: Because they something resemble the first Messengers of Truth.  
FINIS.