If any body in _Rome_ should steal but the value of six pence in his greatest necessity from a Priest, without doubt the _Nipotismo_, who has the Government of the City in their hands, would cause him to be hang’d immediately: and yet they that rob and spoyl the Church go off free, and without any punishment. Every day there comes out some new Order from the Datary-Office for the reformation of the abuses committed by Church-men in their employments; and the _Popes_ do give often particular Commissions to This and That Cardinal to enquire into the lives of the Monks, and take away those Scandals which do every day encrease: And yet for all this the _Romans_ observe, that the more the Decrees of Reformation are, the more are the Vices multiplied; the disease being so stabborn and inveterate, that it grows worse when the Physician goes about to apply remedies to it. The _Pope’s_ subjects curse the _Nipotismo_ for their Tyranny and Extortions. Christendom is scandalized to see that they little believe that Religion of which they make so great Profession. The Church weeps and sheds tears to see its bowels gnawn and torn by the _Nipotismo_. The State, weakned by so many Taxes and Oppressions, sends its cries to Heaven against them. The Monks exclaim, seeing that the _Nipotismo’s_ Avarice deprives them of their Profit, and makes them contribute towards the maintenance of their Grandeur. Princes and Embassadours retire discontented from _Rome_, not being able to endure the _Nipotismo’s_ insolence. The Altars themselves are often forsaken and stand empty, the Nephews refusing to grant Indulgences without money. Certainly these abuses, these disorders, these scandals should drive the _Popes_ out of _Rome_. That Gardener that does only cut the top of the Weeds, and not root them out, is but an ill Gardener. But how can the _Popes_ reform the abuses of the Church, if they do not begin with their Nephews? For it would also else be a very preposterous Reformation that should begin with the Effect, and leave the Cause untouched. Some say, that the _Popes_ are holy in the Reformations of the Breviary, and the chastizing of the _Romans_ for their faults: But they are devils in leaving the crimes of their Nephews unpunished; for they trusting to their Uncles Indulgence, do slack the Reins, which should curb the natural inclination which we all have to do ill. But it is now time to enter into a particular Narration of the good and hurt the Church has received from the _Nipotismo_; and as we begun their History at _Sixtus_ the fourth, and continued it down to _Alexander_ the seventh now reigning: So we will now begin at _Alexander_, and trace it backwards up to _Sixtus_ the fourth. The first mischief, and indeed the most considerable one, caused by the _Nipotismo_ of _Alexander_, was the change made by them in the _Pope_; whom from godly, pious, and inclin’d to mortification, they have made sensual and ambitious.