(12I) firf weakned and then overthrown; and the Weflerrt Nations kept weak, and in continual Wars againi each other, there was none well able to refit his Pride, but one partyBill was ready to flatter him, partly to keep their own Clergy in Peace, and partly to have his help againft their. Enemies. And the grandCheat by which they were commonly deceivedwas, that they lookt more at his prefent poflefïi- on ofPrimacie, than at the reafon and right by which he claimed its and fo he that had been Prime Patriarch in one Empire, fet up by the Prince, Bill claimed the right ofthe fame places when the Empire was diffolved as ifthe Subjets oftheKings ofFrance, Spain, &c. muff obey him, becaufe they did fo when they were theSub- jeós of Conf intine, Theodofius, Valentinian &c. For by littleand little he changed his Title mentioned in the Council ofcalcedon, into a pretended Divine Right, and fo they that would not have obeyed him as fet upby c.efar and his Councils, obeyed him as if he had been fet upbyGod : For thename of St. Peter and bis Chair and saacef jour was ufedas the common blind. And next to that he did by degrees change his claim of a Primacie in the Empire into a claimof Primacie in all the world: and his claim of a meer Primacie, into a claimofSoveraignty, or Governing Monarchy. Ifyou ask me, how could he blind Men lo far as to make fuck a change ? You feemnot to know Man-kind, nor to obferve common experience. Do you not confi- der what power the Clergiehad every where got with the People ? What an advantage poflètfion and St. Pe- ters name were ? And how lamentably ignorant they kept thePeople ? Do we not fee that even in ourmore knowing times, yea amongProtefants, yea with force Q Divines,
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