THE POPES ADVICE TO THE French KING;
Intreating Him to Contract a Speedy Peace with the Emperour of Germany. Being a True Account from a Person of Quality at Paris, to his Correspondent at LONDON.
NOtwithstanding you were pleased in Your Manifesto to tell Us, that You could easily distinguish betwixt an Ambitious, Irregular, Secular Prince, and Head of the Church; and that You did Combate Us under the First, not Second Notion: That now You would be pleased after more serious Considerations, and the Sacred Truce of a Lasting Peace betwixt Blessed Peter and Your Majesty, to bury all such Distinctions for the Future in the Channel of Obedience and Charity, as well becometh the Eldest Son of our Church; and that with Us, Your Majesty would be pleased to cast an Eye upon the Calamitous Condition of the Catholick Church, which if some Soveraign Antidote be not speedily applyed, will undoubtedly sink into the irreparable Ruins of Heretical Contempt and Desolation: For the avoiding of which we think it the best Expedient that there be forthwith a Right Understanding betwixt His Imperial and Your Most Christian Majesty, that all Passions and prejudicial Interests being cast aside, there may betwixt both Your Majesties such an interchangeable Amity as is Built upon the immoveable Basis of a Firm Peace. In order to which, We and Our most Reverend Conclave shall use such Mediums as shall be proper for the Effecting so Good and Christian a Design; We thought good to signifie unto Your Most Christian Majesty by Our Nuncio that we have given particular Order to Our present Legate at the Imperial Court, to move these things to His Imperial Majesty, and to urge them with such Arguments as We trust may prove Effectual, for Concluding a Lasting Peace betwixt You.
[Page 2] We have lately desired His Imperial Majesty to Consider the Deplorable and Totering Condition of the Catholick Church, the vast growth of Heresie, and its intolerable impudency; and seriously to consider the Causes and Occasions of it: Which if well weighed will be found to be no other than the Effect of our intestine Broyls and Divisions; which will be very obvious if we shall but consider the time when these Heresies began first to be set abroach; was it not that Monstrous Luther from whom as from a second Hydra, all these numerous and various Heresies we now see did spring? Was it not the time when the Venetians were of great power; and therefore envied of many, and feared as his Imperial Majesty is now? Did not these Heresies we now see owe their Birth and Growth to those unhappy Jars: Which were the Effect of that League made against the Venetians in that year 1505. by Maximilian the Emperour; Lewes the 12th King of France, and Pope Julius the 2d? Yes, Yes! Let Us therefore at length learn to be wise, and remember that Fable concerning the Bundle of Reeds, which being separate, might easily be broke, but being knit together were impregnable: We therefore obtest you by the Blessed Virgin, yea, by blessed Peter and his Successors, that your most Christian Majesty would be pleased to suffer that excellent Reprehension that blessed Paul gives to his Corinthians, Not to strive one with another, and that before unbeleivers; but rather to take wrong and suffer your selves to be defrauded; For beleive in these Warr-like preparations, if not prevented will end in nothing but desolation, and cut the Vitals of the Catholick Faith: Yea fill the very mouths of Hereticks with Arguments; and their Arms with Power: may therefore the sober Considerations of what's here presented prevail with both your Majesties to Contract a Speedy and Lasting Peace, and then let us all jointly, as with one Shoulder, imploy all our Power against the Northern Hereticks; Which although its probable we may not utterly Extirpate, yet at least, we may place some Bounderies to their Shoarless Impudence.
From Paris Dated the 28th of December, 1688.