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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 151

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CALEFIO. i4:t against sin nnd hatred thereof may well excuse nnd defend them. I will dare however to say in defence of the jnet judgment of God, and His irrépréhensible Providence, which willed such ruin and destruction, that satisfaction might he made to His justice, provoked by the disorders, disobedience and rebellion of this His realm, that Goti does as do temporal lords, sending armies against those who rise in gainsaying and revolt. As indeed it is clear that when there rose in rebellion against the Church of Rome, which is the Head of Christ's kingdom,'the Patriarchal Church of Alexandria, the Church of Antioch, the holy Chureh of Jerusalem, and that of Constantinople, with all their members, speedily enough God sent as a scourge these infidel ministers of the Divine justice, who enslaved them all, changed their ceremonies into execrable superstitions, the churches into mosques, the Gospel into the Qoran, destroyed their sway, laid low their dignity, profaned the sacraments, and left their faith entombed, so it behoved God to do to this kingdom, where there were sundry sects of old heretics, nnd Greeks too who swore fealty to thV Holy Roman Church, as is evident in the Chureh of Alexandria. Vet when the most Reverend Archbishop Filippo Moccionico returned from the Council of Trent, and like a most watchful shepherd, with all diplomacy and modesty, urged them tu accept the sacred CEcumenical Council of Trent, with no little warmth they refused to yield, and proved how deadly was the venom of disobedience hidden deep in their hearts. Everyone can see the hatred they bore to the dogmas of the Latin Church, and knows that they held it to be heretical. Hence they would not allow any Latin to celebrate upon their altars, but held their priests to be profane persons, and when the Chiefs of the State desired to hear mass in their churches, the? made portable altars. Aud through all the time up to the1 siege what did not the poor Archbishop suffer! How he kept exhorting the Greeks, Armenians, Copts and Maronites, Jacobites and Nestorians! and yet many times these Greeks laid snares for him. Witness the arms which they carried under their cloaks to extirpate the Latins I They would never accept the Council noi- its decrees, nor the eighth Council of Florence. Xay, the Greek bishop Loarà said to me openly, when 1 was sent by the said Archbishop to enlighten him and exhort him to obey our Holy Chnrch, and fulfil his oath—"My son (he said) there are bounds set between ns Greeks and you Latins, and the cures are divided between ns and the flocks, so that on me lies the care of my Greeks, nnd on your Archbishop of the Latins. The eighth nnd ninth Councils were held concerning matteis in question among yon Latins, but they have nothing to do with us." Did not the Archbishop givo him a citation to appear at Rome ? But he came to Yenice, and did not go on to Rome, the Signory sending him back boasting of the rich present it had given him. Did not God clearly visit him with His vengeance, and the punishment of his rebellion ? For as soon as he returned to Veirice he died suddenly, that this schism might not spread, although he said that he acted herein out of respect for the people. But God applied the better remedy. Tt is a just tiring that the same crime should suffer the same punishment. Yet the crime was a happy one, for it brought to the birth that great and much desired, most necessary and most useful fruit, the signing of the Holy League. And when the dragon of the sea put on so great presumption, on October 7 of the next year he was taken with the hook of God's right hand. The goodness of God failed not at sundry times aud in divers manners to foretell this destruction of Cyprus. It was scourged for many years with such swarms of locuste that they ate even the steins of trees. In lôoG, on the morning of S. Mark's day, He sent a terrible earthquake in the city of Limisso ; in Famagosta too a whirlwind, which destroyed a palace and two other houses, and caught np some men from the street, and whirled thein into the air, and let them mil on the roofs, and if it had not been quickly cut, as sailors use at sea,

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