Being thus fully convinced, that the Pope’s so much boasted Supremacy was a bold and ungodly usurpation, I could not help censuring with myself the men of learning, who had countenanced such a pretension, especially the two great champions of the Papal power _Bellarmine_ and _Baronius_. Did they not see what every man, who but dips into the primitive writers, must see; what is obvious to common sense? The poor shifts they are often put to, their ridiculous evasions and cavils, their unmeaning distinctions, their wresting several passages, contrary to the plain and natural meaning of the authors they quote, and, above all, their unsatisfactory answers to the objections of the adverse party, shew but too plainly, that they wrote not from conviction, nor aimed at truth, but, perhaps, at the _red Hat_, which was afterwards bestowed upon them, as a reward for betraying the truth. Few have written in defence of the Pope’s Supremacy, that have not been preferred; and none perhaps who had not preferment in view. _Æneas Sylvius_, afterwards _Pius_ II. being asked, before he was raised to the Papal Chair, How it happened, that, in all disputes between the Popes and the Councils, many Divines sided with the former, and very few with the latter? _Because the Popes_, answered he, _have benefices to give, and the Councils have none_. Had he been asked the same question after he was Pope, he would not perhaps have returned the same answer; but said, upon his being put in mind of it, as _Gregory_ XIII. did afterwards on a like occasion, that, _being raised higher, he saw better and farther_. Those therefore who have stood up in defence of the liberty of the Church against Papal Usurpation, cannot be supposed to have had any other inducement to espouse the cause of truth, but truth itself. And this some have had the Christian courage to do even in _Italy_, and almost in the Pope’s hearing, at the peril of their liberty, of their lives, of all that was dear to them; as I shall have occasion to shew hereafter. But to return, in the mean time, to the present History: I no sooner found myself in a Country where truth might be uttered without danger, than I resolved to resume and pursue, in my native tongue, as soon as I recovered the use of it, the work I had begun in a foreign language. On the one side I saw the only obstruction to an undertaking, which had already cost me no small pains and labour, happily removed; while I flattered myself on the other, that as a complete _History of the Popes_ was still wanting, such a performance might meet with a favourable reception from the public. I am well apprised, that others have, at different times, and in different languages, treated the same subject: but whether any of their several works may deserve the name of a _complete_, or even of a _tolerable History_, I leave those to judge who have perused them; and shall only say in respect to myself; that, instead of diverting me from undertaking