So the house of _Gregory_ the fourteenth, who was born as I have said of the ancient Family of the _Sfondrati_, who had made themselves, as it were, immortal in _Milan_, not only in respect of the greatness of their Authority, but in the multitude of their Issue; yet in less than forty years after _Pope Gregory_, its leaves fell, and the whole Tree of the _Sfondrati_ withered. The House of _Aldobrandini_ also, from which _Clement_ the eight was descended, from the time of the _Lombards_ to the said _Pope_, continued so eminent in _Florence_; there was at several times three and twenty of that name chief Standard-bearers, and all elected by the people: Nevertheless as soon as there was a _Pope_ of this Family (which was _Clement_) it began to decay, and is now at that pass, there is but one sprig left of all the branches, and that infertile and incapable of recovering them, though he should be made a _Pope_. In short, a thousand other examples might be produc’d to evince what I have asserted; which examples though I have describ’d in History, yet are they enough to demonstrate the _Popes_ and their dependents, that all the care, contentions, and designs they go through for advancement of their particular Families, are not blessed by the Lord; because he suffers them not to prosper: it being more then certain, That when he keeps not the City, the Watchmen wake but in vain. God Almighty not suffering those who have rais’d themselves to that greatness, out of the Bowels of those that are in Purgatory, themselves to remain long without punishment for their faults. He will not permit those Families that are elated and grown insolent with the wealth and blood of those poor carkases that are buried in their Churchyards, to continue long in this world themselves. Heaven is offended to behold sacred things transformed into profane, Churches into Palaces, Alms into Thefts, Crosses into Swords, Altars into Lordships, Holy things into Comedy and Sport, Divine Worship into an adoration of Riches, or rather adoration into Riches. He that shall be pleas’d to run over the actions of all the _Popes_, that is, the History wherein all the Families that have afforded any _Popes_ to the world, Shall finde this for an infallible truth, that they are either all as it were extinct, or the small remainder that is left reduc’d to a very mean and inconsiderable condition: As if heaven could not endure the Patrimony of Saint _Peter_ should be made an universal scandal to the world, and be an occasion of eternizing the memory of the Sacriledge they have committed.