POPISH POLICY.

Pope Sixtus V hated and dreaded the king of Spain, and therefore chose rather to see heresy supported in England, than Philip II become master of so good a country. Popes as sovereigns, follow the principles of a sovereign’s religion, and consequently they sacrifice the interest of the Romish religion to the interest of their private power. What would they be the better, for instance sake, for a king of Spain’s subduing the Protestants, if by that means he made himself so formidable to the court of Rome, that they should not dare to refuse the Spaniards any thing, for fear the year 1527, and the imprisonment of Clement VII should return again? It is a less disadvantage to the pope not to be acknowledged either in Holland or England, than if by such an acknowledgment any Catholic prince should be enabled to obtain all his demands at Rome, either by fair or foul means. If this principle of speculation be not sufficient to persuade, that Sixtus V did as much as in him lay to cross the enterprises of the king of Spain against Elizabeth, we shall soon find a practical argument which will complete the conviction. When Lewis XIV made such considerable and rapid progresses against the United Provinces in 1672, Cardinal Altieri (who was pope in reality, though another bore the name of pope Clement X) received this news with deep sorrow, because he did not love France, and because the Duke d’Estrée, ambassador of that crown, mortified him as much as he could. Of later days we have seen Innocent XI deaf to any thing that might have favoured the affairs of king James II, and a zealous promoter of any thing that was contrary to France. This was because he feared more the aggrandizing of Lewis XIV than he wished the enlarging of the Roman Catholic religion. He feared

being crushed under the overgrown power of that prince, and therefore was glad to see the Protestants in a condition to check and lessen it; whence we may be better acquainted with the happy situation of the affairs of the Protestants, since not only the eternal jealousy between France and the house of Austria, will ever make them find allies and protectors in states of contrary religion, but even the court of Rome, according to the exigency of occasions, will do what Sixtus did to the prejudice of the king of Spain, and Innocent XI to the prejudice of Lewis XIV. That court is no less concerned than the others in maintaining a balance of power in Christendom.

But why need I search after examples? It is sufficient to consider Sixtus himself with respect to Henry the great. It is certain that having taken notice how much the league added to the strength of the Spaniards, he shifted measures and favoured the Protestant party in France, and if death had not pre vented him, he would have used all his endeavours to take the crown of Naples from the king of Spain. He crossed the league so openly, that the Spaniards threatened to protest against him, and to provide by other means for the preservation of the church which he abandoned. His death filled those of the league with joy, one of their preachers proclaiming it to the Parisians in these words: “God has delivered us from an ill pope and politician; had he lived some time longer, people had wondered to hear the pope exclaimed against in the pulpits of Paris, which however must have been done.” It was not because he knew the great merit of Henry IV, or the false pretences of the league, that this pope took measures contrary to the interest of the Romish religion, but because the good successes of the heretics revenged him of the king of Spain, whom he hated.

Art. Elizabeth.