The answer.
Though your restraint of these properties to heretikes, be neither in it selfe true, neither agréeable with the truth of the text which speaketh more generallie, yet bicause it can not be but that such teachers be heretikes, as be so grosselie wicked, we will examine the case how you can cléere your most holie fathers, and the pillars of your church from being heretikes: the properties here mentioned be in nūber six. The first, walking after the flesh in concupiscence of vncleannes: what the testimonies of al stories are, concerning not the dregs but the highest and holiest amongst you I néede not tell you. Pope Iohn the eight, otherwise called pope Ioan, deliuered of a childe in solemne procession, whose pic∣ture remaineth in Rome as a monument of the truth of her be∣ing pope, bewraieth sufficientlie their vncleannes and filthines. Pope Iohn the thirtéenth was slaine being taken in the age of adulterie. It were too long to rip vp the licentious liues of other popes, I know your selues are ashamed of them. The second, is cōtempt of dominion: your popes haue not only vsurped the place & seat of their soueraigne lords, but haue also troden vpon them, deposed Emperors and kings from their roial estate, made them his pages to lead his horse and hold his stirrop, and to thinke it a great curtesie that they might be admitted to kisse his foot. If this be not contempt of dominion, then what cal you it? For boldnes, what dare not they do to mē, that dare cast their god into the fire? that dare poison the holie host as they terme it. What selfe plea∣sers they be in this it appeareth, that they both flatter them selues, and go about to perswade others that they can not erre? How Christendome hath bene replenished by them with sectes, he that vnderstandeth & knoweth the swarmes, the number, the diuersitie of Monkes, Friers, Nunnes, Eremites, Iesuits, and such like, can not doubt? And for blasheming which is the sixt, he that hath read of the Popes spéech, that he called the Gospel the fable or tale of Christ, can not doubt but that this note also is ve∣rified of your holie father: now acquite your selues well, and shewe vs some good defence of your popes against these pro∣perties.