[Enter PHILOLOGUS.]
CARDINAL.
Sit down, Master Hypocrisy, to yield me assistance.
HYPOCRISY.
I thank your lordship for your courteous benevolence.
I will be the noddy—I should say the notary,
To write before my Lord Legate, which is commissary.
CARDINAL.
Ah, sirrah! be you he that doth thus disturb
The whole estate of our faith catholic?
Art thou so expert in God's laws and word,
That no man may learn thee, thou arrant heretic?
But this is the nature of every schismatic:
Be his errors never so false doctrine,
He will say by God's word he dare it examine.
PHILOLOGUS.
With humble submission to your authority,
I pardon crave, if ought amiss I say;
For being thus set in peril and extremity,
To me unacquainted, my tongue soon trip may:
Wherefore excuse me, I do your lordship pray,
And I will answer to every demand,
According to my conscience, God's word being my warrant.
CARDINAL.
To begin therefore orderly: how say'st thou, Philologus,
Have I authority to call thee me before?
Or, to be short, I will object it thus:
Whether hath the Pope, which is Peter's successor,
Than all other bishops preheminence more?
If not, then it follow that neither he,
Nor I which am his legate, to accompts may call thee.
PHILOLOGUS.
The question is perilous for me to determine,
Chiefly when the party is judge in the cause;
Yet, if the whole course of Scripture ye examine,
And will be tried by God's holy laws,
Small help shall you find to defend the same cause,
But the contrary may be proved manifestly,
As I in short words will prove to you briefly.
The surest ground, whereon your Pope doth stand,
Is of Peter's being at Rome a strong imagination,
And the same Peter, you do understand,
Of all the disciples had the gubernation,
Surmising both without good approbation,
Unless you will by the name of Babylon,
From whence Peter wrote, is understanded Rome.
As indeed divers of your writers have affirmed,
Reciting Jerome, Austin, Primatius, and Ambrose,
Who by their several writings have confirmed
That Rome is New Babylon: I may it not glose.
But it were better for you they were dumb, I suppose,
For they labour to prove Rome by that acception
The whore of Babylon, spoke of in the Revelation.
But grant that Peter in Rome settled was,
Yet that he was chief it remains you to prove;
For in my judgment it is a plain case,
That if any amongst them to rule it did behove,
He should be the chief, whom Christ most did love;
To whom he bequeathed his mother most dear,
To whom in revelation Christ did also appear.
I mean John Evangelist (by birth) cousin-german
To our Saviour Christ, as stories do us tell:
From whose succession if that you should claim
Superiority, you should mend your cause well,
For then of some likelihood of truth it should smell,
Where none so often as Peter was reproved,
Nor from steadfast faith so oftentimes removed.
But grant all were true herein you do feign,
Mark one proper lesson of a Greek orator:
As a good child of his father's wealth is inheritor,
So of his father's virtues he must be possessor.
Now Peter follows Christ, and all worldly goods forsakes;
But the Pope leaveth Christ, and himself to glory takes.
And to be short, Christ himself refused to be a king,
And the servant above the master may not be;
Which being both true, it is a strange thing,
How the Pope can receive this pomp and dignity,
And yet profess himself Christ's servant to be.
Christ will be no king, the Pope will be more:
The Pope is Christ's master, not his servant, therefore.
CARDINAL.
Ah, thou arrant heretic! I will thee remember.
I am glad I know so much as I do:
I have weighed thy reasons, and have found them so slender,
That I think them not worthy to be answered [to].[48]
How say you, Master Hypocrisy?
HYPOCRISY.
I also think so;
But let him go forward and utter his conscience,
And we will a while longer hear him with patience.
CARDINAL.
Say on, thou heretic: of the holy Sacrament;
Of the body and blood of Christ, what is thine opinion?