The _Gentiles_ praise the _Popes_, and despise _Rome_; the Hereticks praise _Rome_, and despise the _Popes_; and the Catholicks despise both _Rome_ and _Popes_ with a greater, though secreter, disdain, then either the _Gentiles_ or the Hereticks, of which I shall give the reasons. The _Pagans_ attribute all the mischief of _Rome_ to that great number of Church-men with which this City is pestred. The Hereticks, on the other side, lay all the Church-mens disorders upon the _Pope_; and therefore the Hereticks are willing enough to be reconcil’d to _Rome_; but by no means will endure the _Pope_. The _Pagans_, on the contrary, are content to be friends with the _Pope_, but not with _Rome_. This proceeds from the distinctions that the Heathens make in the person of the _Popes_, separating the spiritual from the temporal, and Religion from Civil Government; therefore in the time of _Sixtus_ the V. and _Gregory_ the XV. the _Persians_ and _Japponeses_ sent their Ambassador to _Rome_, taking no small pride in the _Popes_ friendship, whom they esteemed as one of the powerfullest Princes of _Italy_, and for his greatness desired his Amity; their maxime being to make alliances with the most potent Princes of the World; they thought they could not better address themselves then to him, whom all the other Christian Princes did adore and reverence as their head. The Hereticks destroy all this, being neither disposed to acknowledg the _Pope_ as a temporal Prince, nor as a spiritual Pastor; so that with them, Popedome, Principality, Religion, Civil Government, all goes down, when they speak of the _Pope_. Nay, I know a Gentleman of that Religion, who can by no means be perswaded that the _Pope_ is master of _Rome_, and Prince of the Ecclesiastick State, though all the Princes of the world acknowledg him to be so, and for all this, the Protestant Gentleman cannot be brought to believe it, but stands firme upon the Negative. Of the same humour was a great Lord in _Spain_, who could never be convinced, that _Henry_ the fourth was King of _France_, though he knew that his own King did acknowledge him for such, and had sent an Embassadour to him, that all differences upon that subject were lay’d, and that all the Crowns in _Europe_ did own him to be lawful King. And yet for all this the good Don could never believe that which all the world was sure of, and he died in this incredulous humour.