TAE PUBLISHER TO THE READER, THrs excellent and elaborate " Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy,' which I here present thee withal, the learned author of it upon his deathbed gave me particular permissionto publish, with this modest character of it, that "he hoped it was indifferent perfect, though not altogether as he intended it, if God had granted him longer life." He designed, indeed, to have transcribed it again, and to have filled up those many spaces which were purposely left in it for the farther con- firmation and illustration of several things by more testimonies and instances, which probably he had in his thoughts; and it would cer- tainly have added much to the beauty and perfection of this work had it pleased God that he had lived to finish it to his mind and to have given it his last hand. However, as it is, it is not only a just but an admirable discourse upon this subject, which many others have handled before, but he has exhausted it, insomuch that no argument of moment, nay, hardly any consideration properly belonging to it has escaped his large and comprehensive mind. He has said enough to silence the controversy for ever, and to deter all wise men, of both sides, from meddling any farther with it. And I dare say, that whoever shall carefully peruse this Treatise will find that this point of the pope's supremacy (upon which Bellar- mine hath the confidence to say the whole of Christianity depends) is not only an indefensible but an impudent cause, as ever was under- taken by learned pens. And nothing could have kept it so long from becoming ridiculous in the judgment of mankind but its being so strongly supported by a worldly interest; for there is not one tole- rable argument for it, and there are a thousand invincible reasons against it. There is neither fromScripture, nor reason, nor antiquity, any evidence of it; the past and the present state of Christendom, the histories and records of all ages, are a perpetual demonstration against it; and there is no other ground in the whole world for it but that now of a long time it hath been, by the pope's janizaries,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=