Let us look at the doings of the Turks.  Mahomet and the apostate monk Sergius lie in the deep abyss, howling, laden with their own crimes and with those of their posterity.  This portentous and savage monster, the power of the Saracens and the Turks, had it not been clipped and checked by our Military Orders, our Princes and Peoples,—­so far as Luther was concerned (to whom Solyman the Turk is said to have written a letter of thanks on this account), and so far as the Lutheran Princes were concerned (by whom the progress of the Turks is reckoned matter of joy),—­this frantic and man-destroying Fury, I say, by this time would be depopulating and devastating all Europe, overturning altars and signs of the cross as zealously as Calvin himself.  Ours therefore they are, our proper foes, seeing that by the industry of our champions it was that their fangs were unfastened from the throats of Christians.

Let us look down on heretics, the filth and fans and fuel of hell[6] the first that meets our gaze is Simon Magus.  What did he do?  He endeavoured to snatch away free will from man:  he prated of faith alone (Clen. lib. i. recog.; Iren. l. 1, c. 2).  After him, Novatian.  Who was he?  An Anti-pope, rival to the Roman Pontiff Cornelius, an enemy of the Sacraments, of Penance and Chrism.  Then Manes the Persian.  He taught that baptism did not confer salvation.  After him the Arian Aerius.  He condemned prayers for the dead:  he confounded priests with bishops, and was surnamed “the atheist” no less than Lucian.  There follows Vigilantius, who would not have the Saints prayed to; and Jovinian, who put marriage on a level with virginity; finally, a whole mess of nastiness, Macedonius, Pelagius, Nestorius, Eutyches, the Monothelites, the Iconoclasts, to whom posterity will aggregate Luther and Calvin.  What of them?  All black crows,[7] born of the same egg, they revolted from the Prelates of our Church, and by, them were rejected and made void.

Let us leave the lower regions and return to earth.  Wherever I cast my eyes and turn my thoughts, whether I regard the Patriarchates and the Apostolic Sees, or the Bishops of other lands, or meritorious Princes, Kings, and Emperors, or the origin of Christianity in any nation, or any evidence of antiquity, or light of reason, or beauty of virtue, all things serve and support our faith.  I call to witness the Roman Succession, in which Church, to speak with Augustine (Ep. 162:  Doctr.  Christ. ii. 8), the Primacy of the Apostolic Chair has ever flourished.  I call to witness those other Apostolic Sees, to which this name eminently belongs, because they were erected by the Apostles themselves, or by their immediate disciples.  I call to witness the Pastors of the nations, separate in place, but united in our religion:  Ignatius and Chrysostom at Antioch; Peter, Alexander, Athanasius, Theophilus, at Alexandria; Macarius and Cyril at Jerusalem; Proclus at Constantinople; Gregory and Basil in Cappadocia;