Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: been in the hands of Pedants: for fo was the State of Rome for the firft five years, which are fo much magnified, during the minority of Nero, in the hands of Seneca, a Pedant: fo it was again, for ten years' fpace or more, during the minority of Gor- dianus the younger, with great applaufe and con- tentation in the hands of Mijitheus, a Pedant: fo was it before that, in the minority of Alexander Severus, in like happinefs, in hands not much unlike, by reafon of the rule of the women, who were aided by the Teachers and Preceptors. Nay, let a man look into the government of the Bifhops of Rome, as by name, into the government of Pius Quintus, and Sextus Shiintus, in our times, who were both at their entrance efteemed but as Pe- J x- dantical Friars, and he fhall find that fuch Popes, f do greater things, and proceed upon truer princi- '. 1 ples of Eftate, than thofe which have afcended to X' the Papacy from an education and breeding in af- -.) fairs of Eftate and Courts of Princes; for although men bred in Learning are perhaps to feek in points of convenience, and accommodating for the pre- fent, which the Italians call Ragioni di jiato, whereof the fame Pius uintus could not hear fpoken with patience, terming them Inventions againft Religion and the moral Virtues; yet on the other fide, to recompenfe that, they are perfect in thofe fame plain grounds of Religion, Juftice, Honour, and Moral virtue, which if they be well and watchfully purfued, there will be feldom ufe of thofe other, no more than of Phyfic in a foundor well-dieted body. Neither can the experience of one man's life furnifh examples and precedents for the events of one man's life: for, as it hap- peneth fometimes that the Grandchild, or other de- fcendant, refembleth the Anceftor more than the Son; fo ma...