of the Papacy, and “a treaty prejudicial to the Church is not binding.” Charles V. and Francis I., in their treaty of Madrid, had stipulated that neither should have his oath dispensed without the consent of the other; but Pope Clement VII. was the first to seduce the King to commit perjury, in order that he might form an alliance with him against the Emperor. So again did Paul IV. release Henry II. from his five years’ truce with Charles V., confirmed by oath, in order to gain the King of France as an ally against Spain. The Jesuit theory of the infallible Pope and the extent of his powers is in no way less extravagant than that which deluded Agostino Trionfo into his deification of the Pope under John XXII.(12) Once admit the maxim of the Syllabus, that the Popes have never exceeded the just limits of their power, and it must obviously be their right to dispose of crowns and peoples, property and freedom, since they have in fact claimed and exercised the right. Thus, for instance, Nicolas V. did not at all violate the common rights of men, but only made a proper use of his own absolute authority, when he gave full power to King Alfonso of Portugal, and his successors, to subjugate unbelieving nations, appropriate their territories and all their possessions, and reduce their persons to perpetual slavery. Nor was Alexander VI. less justified in conferring on Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and their successors the newly discovered countries of America, and then drawing the famous line from north to south through the New World, and dividing it between Spain and Portugal. It was to the authority of the Pope, as the lord of all mankind, to whom all men are subject, wherever born, and of whatever religion, since God has subjected the whole earth to his jurisdiction, and made him master of it, that the Spanish conquerors appealed against the natives. On this plea they treated all refusal to submit as rebellion, for which they meant to take vengeance on the natives—as in fact they did in the most horrible manner—by cruel wars, confiscation of property, and slavery. Their lust of conquest, with all the abominations they perpetrated, could always be excused and justified by the remembrance that they were only acting with the sanction of God’s earthly representative, and punishing the refusal to recognise his legitimate dominion over the world.