another as derived from Christ and his Apostles must be received with the same Veneration and Obedience that we pay to the Holy Scriptures And for the ways of distinguishing a Tradition of the Church from any Imposture or Novelty There be four of them The first That is the most doubtful is That the greatest and most esteemed Doctors in any Age deliver as a Divine Truth Nor is it necessary that they formally say This is a Tradition but if many of them mention an Opinion and declare their own assent to it this passes as a sufficient proof of the Tradition of any Age of the Church So in all points of Controversie between them and us the greatest part of their Writers some few later and suspected ones only excepted think they have sufficiently justified their Church when they bring Testimonies out of any of the Writings of the Fathers that seem to favour their Opinion and will call it unreasonable for us to reject these because they only deliver their own opinion and do not call it the Tradition of the Church but conclude That many Writers in any age asserting an Opinion it may well be looked on as the Tradition of that Age. But because this is more liable to exception there is another way that is more infallible to judg of Tradition and that is by the conveyance of the See of Rome which they judg the chief Depository of the Faith and for which they fansie they have so many proofs from the high things some of the Fathers have said about the dignity of that See Now if these conclude any thing it must follow That whatever has been delivered in any Age by a Pope as conveyed down from Christ or his Apostles must either be so indeed or the See of Rome is not a faithful Transmitter of Tradition But there is yet a more certain way of judging of Tradition by what the chief Pastors of the Church have delivered when assembled in a general Council This being the Supreme Tribunal in the Church there can lie no appeal from it Nor can the Doctrines delivered or approved by it be questioned For instance If it were under debate How the Tradition about Transubstantiation can be made out in the Thirteenth Century it is needless to seek any other evidence than That one Almerick is condemned for denying it and in Opposition to that it was formally established in a general Council This is as much as can be had and he were very unreasonable that were not satisfied with it So if it be asked How can the Tradition of the Doctrine of Deposing Kings and giving away their Dominions in the same Century be proved The Answer is plain That same very Council decreed it Upon which a great Prince was deposed and his Dominions were given to another These are the Common Standards by which Traditions are Examined But to these a new one has been lately added which is indeed a much shorter and nearer way And that is whatever the Church holds in any one age as a Material point of Religion she must have received it from the former age and that age from the former and so it climbs upwards till the days of the Apostles If this be a certain Track of Tradition by which we may infallibly trace it Then for instance If in any one age it hath been believed That St. Peter had power from Christ which he left to the See of Rome by which his Successor in it can depose Kings then this must be an Apostolical Tradition and by consequence of equal authority with any thing written in the Scriptures To these General Considerations about the Authority of the Church and the Certainty of Tradition I shall add Two other about the Nature of Supreme and Soveraign Power By which we may judg of what Extent the Popes Power must be if he have an authority to depose Kings and transfer their Dominions to other persons First When the Soveraign Powers proceed in a Legal way against its Subjects If either they abscond so that they cannot be found Or have such a Power about them that the Sovereign cannot bring them to punishment He may declare them Rebels and set Prices on their Heads And in that case it is as lawful for any Subject to kill them as it is for an Executioner to put a condemned Person to Death These being the several ways the Law provides in those several cases So when a Pope deposes a Prince He may as lawfully set on private Assassinates to kill him as oblige his Subjects to rise with open force against him For if the Pope has a Power over him to depose him this clearly follows from the Nature of Sovereign Power and it is the Course that sometimes must be followed when the Rebel can be no other way brought to deserved punishment and if the Pope has the power of deposing then a Prince who after such a Sentence carries himself as a King is a Rebel against his Supreme Lord And is also an Usurper For his Title being destroyed by the Sentence He has no authority over his Subjects and therefore may be as lawfully killed as any Rebel or Usurper Secondly The Supreme power may in cases of great necessity when the thing is in it self materially just pass over such Forms as ought in ordinary Cases to be observed I need not tell you That in a great Fire Subordinate Magistrates may blow up Houses But doubtless the Supreme Power of all as a King in an absolute Monarchy and such is the Papal Power if these Opinions be true may dispence with some Forms when the Matter is in it self just and if the chief design of a Law be pursued the circumstantial parts of it may upon extraordinary occasions be superseded Therefore if the Pope is Supreme over all Kings and has this deposing Power Then though by the Canon a King ought to be first a Year Excommunicated for his Heresy or favouring Hereticks and at the Years end he may be Deposed by the Pope There are also other Rules for Excommunications tho the Summary way in some cases may be used yet all these are but circumstantial and lesser Matters The design of that Law is That no Heretical Prince or favourer of Heresie be continued in his Power The other are but Forms of Law that cannot be indispensibly necessary in all cases Besides the very Canon Law teaches that when there is both a Notorietas juris Facti Summary proceedings are Legal when then it is Notorious that the Doctrines of the Church of England for Instance are Heretical and that the King is an Obstinate Favourer of these Heresies and will not extirpate them Summary and Secret proceedings are justifiable There is no hope that Bulls Breves or Citations would do any good in this case These would on the contrary alarm the State and bring all the Party under great hazards Therefore from the Nature of Supreme Power it is most justly Inferred That
A LETTER Written upon the DISCOVERY Of the Late PLOT Licensed W. Jane Octob. 17. 1678. LONDON Printed for H. Brome and R. Chiswell both living in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1678. A LETTER Written upon the DISCOVERY Of the Late PLOT SIR I Heartily thank you for the News your last brought me of the discovery of that horrid Plot both against his Majesties Person and the whole Kingdom I doubt not but all good men are offering up their acknowledgments to God for so great a Blessing which is a fresh demonstration of his care of this Church and State and that all our Crying sins have not provoked him yet to abandon us of which I pray God make us all sensible that we may not continue to pull down such judgments as the malice of wicked men would readily become instrumental in if the Providence of God did not so wonderfully and seasonably interpose There is only one Passage in your Letter that I wonder at You tell me every body is surprized with this Plot now discovered I confess I am not of their mind for although I know there are persons of high Honour and untainted Loyalty of the Roman Religion who abominate the thoughts of all secret Assassinations much more of Murdering his Majesty yet such practices are so necessarily consequent to the Principles of that Church that no Member of it who throughly understands them can while they continue in that Communion avoid the being involved in Conspiracies as oft as a sit occasion presents it self These several years past they have boasted much of their Loyalty and their Services and Sufferings for his Majesty during the late Civil Wars All this was necessary to make the Government put confidence in them that so they might more secretly lay their designs which were to take effect when a Conjuncture was offered that seemed favourable But I must again and again repeat what I often told you in discourse That no Member of that Church can thorowly understand and believe the Principles of it and be a good Subject even to a King of his own Perswasion But he can be much less so to a Prince whom he looks on as an Heretick who thereby lies under a general Excommunication and may be brought under a particular and Formal one before he or any body else but such as are fit to be entrusted with the Secret shall know it And then the Prince is at the mercy of all his Popish Subjects who if they consider aright the Doctrine of their own Church must depart from their Allegiance to Him and be ready to do any thing that is laid on them by those who are either directly their Superiours if they have taken Religious Vows or at least have some authority over their Consciences This I shall open to you in as short and plain terms as is possible and the rather that you may communicate it to some persons of Honour of that Religion who I hope upon so fresh a Discovery of these practices may be now not unwilling to examine a Point the consideration of which they before rejected as an Imputation cast on their Religion This will now I imagine move them so far to demur as to consider impartially whether such practises flow only from the ill Tempers of particular Persons or from the received Principles of their Church This latter I undertake to make out from the undeniable Maximes to which all of that Communion are bound to adhere There are Two Principles which I may well call the Fundamental Principles of the Roman Church since all Opinions that are not inconsistent with them can be tollerated among them But whatever strikes at these must needs be Abominated as Destructive of that they call The Catholick Faith The one is The Authority of the Church The other is The Certainty of Tradition If then the Doctrine of Deposing Kings and by consequence Killing them for if they are justly deposed it 's as just to kill them as to kill any Usurper is such that without denying the Authority of the Church and the Certainty of Tradition it cannot be denied then all men must resolve either to acknowledg it or to renounce their Subjection to a Church that must needs believe it About the Authority of the Church Two things are to be observed that serve for clearing what I design to make out The First is That the Church in any one Age has as much Authority as ever it had or can have in any other Age For if Christs Promises together with the other Arguments they bring for the Authority of the Church be good they are alike strong at all Times and in all Ages And therefore though in writing Books of Controversies they muster up Authorities out of the former Ages because we profess we pay little esteem to the latter Ages Yet among themselves all Ages are alike and the Decrees of them are of equal authority Secondly The Authority of the Church is as little to be disputed in moral matters that fall under practice as in Articles of Faith that only fall under Speculation and in a word The Church must be the Infallible Expounder of the Ten Commandments as well as of the Creed All the Arguments from Christs Promises from the hazard of trusting to our private Reasonings and the Necessity of Submitting to a publick Judg are by so much the more concluding in Practical matters as it is of more Importance That Men think aright in Practical than in Speculative Opinions If then there arises a Question about a Moral matter or the Exposition of any of the Commandments The only certain Decision must be expected from the Church For instance a Question arises about Images Whether it is lawful to use them in the Worship of God upon the seeming Opposition which the worship of them has to the 2d Commandment Since the Church has once Determin'd that it may be lawfully used it is Heresie to deny it on this pretence that we fancy it is contrary to one of the Commandments So if a Controversie arise upon the Fifth Commandment How far a King is to be acknowledged if the Church has determined the Limits of that it is Heresie to carry it further If also another Question arise how much the Sixth Commandment obliges It must be carried so far and no further than the Determination of the Church allows I confess by the Doctrine of that Church even a General Council may err in a point in which any matter of Fact is included Because they may be deceived by a false Information But in a General Rule about Morality and the Extent of any of the Ten Commandments The Decision of the Church must either be certain and for ever Obligatory or the whole Doctrine of the Infallibility of the Church falls to the ground Concerning the Certainty of Tradition the general Opinion of that party is That Tradition is an Infallible Conveyance of Divine Truth and that whatever any Age of the Church delivers to
though there have been no publick Sentence of Deposition according to the Forms of the Canon Law yet all these may be dispensed with and a Secret and Summary one may do as well These Positions are such that I cannot fansie any just Exceptions to which they are liable and from all these laid together the Inference will undeniably follow That according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome the power of Deposing Kings is lodged with the Pope by a Divine Authority and that by consequence private persons may conspire to take away the Life of a King so deposed Even though there be no publick Sentence given about it But before I bring the Evidence for all this I shall desire the Reader will a little reflect on the Positions I have laid down in which he will find an Answer to all the Exceptions that can be made against the following Evidence By the first The Authority of the Church being the same in all Ages he will see it is to no purpose to pretend these were dark Ages So that what was done in an ignorant time cannot oblige the World when things are seen in a better light But if the Church has an Authority from Christ that shall last till the end of the World it must be the same in all ages The Ignorance of the age is a very good answer when made by a Protestant but can signifie nothing in a Papists Mouth By the second Of the Churches authority in setling Moral Rules for practice it appears how fond that distinction is which they make between a Canon and a Decree It is true a Decree about a particular Case in which there is some matter of Fact may be wrong according to their Principles and yet the authority of the Church remain entire For instance in the deposing a Prince or condemning a Man for Heresie the Church may either by false Witnesses or mistaking a Man's words be drawn to pass an unjust Sentence by reason of a mis representation of the Fact But that is nothing to the purpose here where a Decree is made as a perpetual Rule of Practice this must be of the same authority of a Canon about any article of Faith Otherwise it will follow that the Church may mislead the People in matters indispensably necessary to Salvation For such is the Obedience to the Ten Commandments By the first way of judging of the Tradition of the Church from what the most received Writers in any age deliver as the Doctrine of the Church it will appear That the Schoolmen and Canonists are as competent Conveyers of Tradition from the twelfth age downward as the Fathers were from the sixth Age upward and laying this for a Principle That the Church is the same in all Ages they are really more competent Witnesses than the Fathers were First Because they write more closely to the subject they have in hand they consider what is said for or against an Opinion in a more exact manner than the Fathers did who being carried with the heat they are sometimes in go off from the purpose and generally affect Eloquence which is the most improper Stile for nice Matters Whereas the Schoolmen write in a blunt way only considering the purpose they are about coyning the most barbarous words they can light on when they think them the fittest to express their Notions Secondly They were divided into two famous Schools among whom there were great heats the Scotists and Thomists So that if either of these had asserted any thing that was not the received Doctrine of the Age they lived in the other Party had such Emulation against them that they would not have failed to have laid them open as they did in the matter of the Immaculate Conception of the B Virgin Whereas the Fathers writing only against Hereticks or other Enemies to Christianity they might have mistaken some things without so publick a discovery as was likely to happen among the Schoolmen 3dly The Schoolmen wrote on purpose to deliver the Doctrine of the Age in which they lived to those who were to succeed them Their Books being generally the Divinity Lectures they read either in Colledges or Religious Houses to their Scholars whereas the Fathers wrote upon Emergent Occasions either Letters or Treatises to private Persons regarding more the present than the succeeding Age. In which we cannot expect that exactness that is to be looked for in a Publick Lecture Upon all which I assume That allowing the Church to have the same Authority in all Ages the Schoolmen are more competent Witnesses of the Tradition of the Church in their Ages than the Fathers were in theirs By the second Rule for judging of Traditions from the Conveyance of the See of Rome it does undeniably follow That the Popes from Gregory the Sevenths time downward were as sure Depositories of the Traditions of the Church as were the Popes from Gregory the First his time upward They were both alike Christ's Vicars and St. Peters Successors So that all the high words that the Fathers bestow on the See of Rome were either Complements in which they are not wanting or were said because of the worth of the Bishops whom they had known in that See But if they be to be understood in that sence in which the Writers of Controversy obtrude them on us then it will follow manifestly that as to the Conveyance of Tradition P. Gregory the 7th is as much to be believed when he says any thing in the Name of St. Peter or of Christ as any of the Popes are For in the Preamble of Bulls and Breeves the Reasons are given of what follows which are most commonly vouched from Apostolical Authority and Tradition So let the Pope be ever so ignorant or so corrupt in his Manners what he asserts to be Apostolical Tradition must be either received as such or the authority of that See is overthrown therefore they must either cease to press us any more with tht Authority of the See of Rome or acknowledg that all the Popes Declarations which they make about Traditions are to be received It is an Answer to be made use of only to ignorant Persons to say These Depositions were the Deeds of some Popes who might be ill Men and the Church is not concerned to justify them I confess whether this or that Deposition was justly or lawfully made is a personal thing in which only the Pope who decreed it is concerned But if he declares in the Preamble that the Power of deposing upon those reasons is grounded on an Apostolical Tradition then the See is concerned in it for either he declares true or false if the former then that Power of deposing comes from Apostolical Tradition if they acknowledge he declares false then we are not any more to be urged with the Authority of that See as the certain Depository of the Traditions of the Church By the third Mark to judge of the Tradition of any age
had asserted it And from such a succession of Councils it is reasonable to conclude That this Third Character of a Tradition of the Church agrees to it and if General Councils are fit Conveyors of Traditions we have as full Evidence as can be desired for proving this to be a Church-Tradition This last Character of a Tradition is what the whole Body of the Church has held in any one Age. Upon which they say we may calculate that such opinions must have come down from the Apostles since it seems neither credible nor possible that the Belief of the Church could be changed With this Arnold has of late made great noise And as the new Fashions that come from France do please our young Gallants best so some of the Writers of Controversies among us have taken up the same plea here That the whole Church received the Deposing Doctrine in cases of Heresy may be inferred from what had been said The Church is made up of Popes Bishops Priests Of Soveraign Princes and Subjects of all ranks That the Popes believed it none can doubt So many Definitions of Councils shews us as plainly what the Bishops and other Prelates believed the Writing of the School-men and Canonists shew what the rest of the Clergy believed Those Princes who suffered under the Sentences give at least a tacit consent to it since they never question it but study only to clear themselves of the imputation of Heresie The other Princes who made use of the Donations of the Popes shew as plainly that they believ'd it The great Armies that were brought about their Standards must have also believed it and the people who generally deserted the Deposed Prince notwithstanding the great vertues of some of them and the love that Subjects naturally carry to their Princes shew that they believed it So that if St. James his Question Shew me thy Faith by thy Works be applied to this particular the Answer will be easie What shall I mention the frequent depositions of Charles the 1st of Henry the 4th of his Son Henry the 5th of Frederick the 1st Philip Otho the 4th Frederick the 2d and Lewis the 4th in the Empire The frequent Depositions in Sicily and Naples the many attempts upon France that terrible Bull in particular of Julius the 2d against that good King Lewis the twelfth By which besides the Sentence against the King it appears he designed the total destruction of the Nation promising the Pardon of Sin to every one that killed one French Man the frequent Attempts upon England both in Hen. the 2d and K. John's time not to mention their later Bulls of Deposition against K. Henry the 8th and Q. Elizabeth the many Attempts in Spain particularly the deposing the King of Navarre by P. Julius and the Sentences against Henry the 4th then King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde All these and a great many more with the strange Effects that followed upon them are so clear Proofs of the Worlds believing this Doctrine for many Ages together that if Men had any Remainders of shame left with them they could not deny it And to this day all their Writers maintain it tho perhaps now the greatest part of the Laity know little of it but whenever the Tradition of the Church is laid before them they are obliged to submit or they fall from the Catholick Faith the chief Branch of which is To believe all the Traditions of the Church And since the Church is the same in all Ages according to their Doctrine the Traditions of any one Age must be as good as the Traditions of any other can be all being grounded on the same Authority And now let all the Reasons that Arnold brings to prove from the Churches believing Transubstantiation in any Age that she must have always believed it be considered and applied with a small variation of the Terms to this Purpose and we shall see if they conclude not as strongly in favour of this Doctrine as for that which he has pursued so much How can it be imagined says he that a Doctrine so contrary to common Sence and Reason could have been so universally received if every Man had not been taught it by those who instructed him in the Faith Will Men easily change their Faith Or tho particular Persons would prevaricate would the whole Clergy conspire to do it Or would the People take it easily off their hands These and many more Topicks of that sort may be so mustered up and set off by a Man of Wit and Eloquence that an ordinary Person would stare and not know what to say The Premises will shew that there is need but of very little Art to change the same Plea and fit it to this purpose with two great advantages beyond what can be fanci'd to be in the other The one is that the generality of Mankind is naturally more concerned in the preservation of Temporal things than about nice points of Speculation the one they see and handle every day and are much concerned about the other they hear little of and are not much touched with them So that it is less probable there could be a change made in opinions on which the Titles of Princes and the Peace of Kingdoms depended than about subtil Discourses concerning Mysteries So that the Plea is stronger for the Tradition of deposing Kings than for Transubstantiation A second Difference is That there was a continual Opposition made to the belief of Transubstantiation in all Ages which they themselves do not deny only they shift it off the best they can by calling the Opposers Hereticks but for the deposing Doctrine there was not one Person in the whole World that presumed to bring it in question from the first time it was pretended to till those whom they call Hereticks disputed against it and tho some few others who hold Communion with them have ventured on a canvasing of that Doctrine it is well enough known what thanks they got from Rome nor can they shew any one Book licensed according to the Rules of their Church that denies it And thus the Plea for this Doctrine has a double Advantage beyond that for Transubstantiation Upon the whole matter then if Tradition be a sure Conveyance and if we may pronounce what is truly a Tradition either from the Opinions of Doctors the Constitutions of Popes the Decrees of General Councils and the universal Consent of the whole Church for some Ages then the Doctrine of deposing Kings to which all these agree must be reckoned among Church-Traditions There is but one other Mark that can be devised of a Tradition which is What the Church has taught and believed in all Ages but for a certain Reason which they know very well they will not stand to that They know we do not refuse such Traditions and if only such may be received then the Worship of Images the Prayers to Saints the Worship in an unknown Tongue
from the Decision of a General Council it appears that the Decisions of the fourth Council of Lateran are as Obligatory as the Decrees of the first Council of Nice the Church having the same power in all Ages If it be said it was only a Council of the Western Church the like may be objected against the first General Council which were generally made up of Eastern Bishops and very few of the Western Bishops sat in them And if we esteem a Council General because it was received by the Church then the whole Church of Rome having received that Council it must be acknowledged to be General as much as any ever was But to this others answer That a Council is only Infallible when a thing is decreed by it according to the Tradition of the Church If this be true the whole Controversie between the Roman Church and us about the authority of Councils is decided on our Side For if a Council has only authority to declare Traditions then it is free for every Person to examine whether this Declaration be according to truth or not And if it be found that it is not so they may lawfully reject such Decisions For instance in the second Council of Nice the worship of Images was established upon a mock-shew of Tradition and yet all the World knows there were no Images allowed in the Church the first four Ages after Christ and even in the sixth Age P. Gregory declared That though they might be in the Church yet they ought not to be worshipped Nor was there any contest about it before the eighth Century This being thus examined and found to be True then according to the foregoing Answer that Decision was of no force though made by the second Council of Nice In a word if this Maxime be true That Councils are only to be submitted to when they decree according to Apostolical Tradition then they have no Authority in themselves and their decisions can have no more force than this That it may seem probable that they were not mistaken and in an Ignorant Age even this probability will vanish to nothing No Body will reject the Decision of a Council when the Decrees are just and right But if it be upon that score alone that they are to be submitted to then none are bound by them before they have examined them And if upon a Search it appear they decreed against Tradition then their Decrees are to be rejected So it is apparent this Answer does plainly according to their Principles lay the foundation of all Heresie since it gives every Man a right to question the Decrees of a General Council Besides How can those Persons be assured that the fourth Council of Lateran did not decree according to Tradition The Acts of that Council are lost so we cannot know upon what reasons they made their Decrees And it cannot be said that because there is no mention made of any Tradition in the Decree that therefore they considered none It is seldom found that the reasons of any Decree are put with it But we may reasonably enough believe that they followed the Method in this Council that had been used in some former ones particularly in the second Council of Nice which was this a Writing was read penned perhaps by the Pope or a Patriarch in which the Tradition of the Church was confidently alledged and some Quotations were brought and very oft out of some later Writers The Paper was no sooner read than a loud and often repeated Shout of applause followed without any further search or canvasing about these Authorities And upon that the Decree was made This was the practice both of the second Nicene and of some more ancient Councils whose Journals are hitherto preserved and where the Journals are lost we have reason to believe they followed the same method so that it is very probable there might have been some such Writing read in the Council of Lateran And if they did not found their Decree upon Tradition they were much to blame for they had as venerable a Tradition as either the second Council of Nice or some other Councils had a practiee about 150 years standing from the days of Pope Gregory the VII so that it is not to be denied but they had as good authority from Tradition to make this Decree as to make most of the other Decrees on which they insist much in the Books of Controversies that are written by them By the fourth Rule of judging about Tradition the matter is yet much plainer for if the generally received Belief of any Age of the Church is a good Thread to lead us up to the Apostles times then there needs no more be said For it is certain that for near four Ages together this was the universally received Doctrine of the Church of Rome And the opposition that some Princes made to it was condemned as Heresy Rebellion and every thing that was evil And it is remarkable that both Ockam that wrote much for the Emperors cause against the Pope and Gerson and Almain no great favourers of Papal power are cited by Cardinal Perron as acknowledging the Ecclesiastical power of deposing if a Prince were guilty of spiritual crimes So that the Controversies in this matter that were managed between the Writers for the Popes and Emperors were not whether the Pope in cases of Heresy might depose a Prince but were concerning two things very remote from this The one was whether the Pope had a direct Temporal power over all Kings by which as being Lord of the Fee he could proceed upon any Cause whatsoever against a King and take his Dominions from him To this indeed Gregory the 7th pretended tho more covertly and Boniface the 8th more avowedly There was great Opposition made to this by many Writers but at the same time they all agreed on it as an undeniable Maxim That the Pope had an indirect Power over Princes by which in the Cases of Heresy he might excommunicate and depose them nor was there so much as any Debate about it A second thing about which there was some Controversy was whether the Particulars that fell under debate came within the Head of Heresy or not So in the Case of Princes giving the Investitures into Bishopricks the Pope brought it in within the Head of Heresy and condemned those Persons as Simoniacks The Writers on the other side denied this pretending it was a Civil Matter and a right of the Crown The like Debates fell in when Princes were sentenced on any other account The Authority of the Sentence in the Case of Heresy was not controverted all the Question was Whether the Point under debate was Heresy or not And concerning these things any who have read the Writings in the great Collection made of them by Goldastus will receive an easy and full Satisfaction By which it appears that the Popes Power of deposing Kings in the Case of Heresy was the received Doctrine of the
Jurisdiction 4ly When the Ambassadors of France and England Interceded that the Emperors desire might be granted the Council gave him near two weeks time to appear in which was so incompetent a time and all had declared themselves so prepossest or rather so overawed by the Pope that hated him Mortally That the Emperor would not appear because they were his professed Adversaries And upon that and other grounds none of them touching on the power of Deposing in cases of Heresie He appealed from them to the next General Council Upon which the Pope and Prelates sitting in Council with Candles burning in their hands thundred out the Sentence against him Here were three very publick Judgments of three General Councils on this Head within the compass of sixty years But it may be imagined these were Councils that wholly depended on the Pope and so their Decrees are to be looked on only as a Ceremony used by the Pope to make his own Sentence look more solemn But when upon the long Schism in the See of Rome the power of that See was much shaken and a Council met at Constance to heal that Breach in which the Bishops taking advantage from that Conjuncture to recover their former Dignity began to Regulate many matters It may be upon such an occasion expected that if any Party in the Church had disliked these practices they should have been now condemned and that the rather since by so doing the Bishops might have hoped to get the Princes to be of their side in their Contests with the Pope But it fell out quite otherwise For as the Murtherers of his late Sacred Majesty pretended when the King was killed that all his power was devolved on them and would have even the same precedence allowed their Ambassadors in forreign parts that his had So the Council of Constance reckoned that whatever Rights the Popes had assumed did now rest with them as the Supreme Power of the Church For in one of their Sessions a Decree was framed made up of all the severe Decrees that had ever been made against those who violated the Rights of the Church And this Clause often returns That all the Breakers of these Priviledges whether they were Emperors Kings or whatsoever other Degree were thereby ipso facto subjected to the Banns Punishments and Censures set down in the Council of Lateran And tho they do not call it the Fourth Council yet we are sure it could be no other for they relate to that in which Frederick the 2d was consenting to which was the fourth in the Lateran And in another Decree by which they hoped to have set up a Succession of General Councils at every ten years end this Clause is added That if any person whether of the Papal for they had subjected the Pope to the Council and had more reason to fear his opposing this Decree than any Bodies else Imperial or Regal Dignity c. should presume to hinder any to come to the next General Council he is declared to be first Excommunicated then under an Interdict and then to be subject to further punishment both Temporal and Spiritual And in the Pass they gave the King of the Romans to go to the King of Arragon they add this Sanction That whatever person whether King Cardinal c. do hinder him in his Journey he is ipso facto deprived of all Honour Dignity Office or Benefice whether Ecclesiastical or Secular So here the indirect power over Princes by which they may be both deposed and punished is plainly assumed It is true that same Council did indeed Decree That no Subject should murther his King or Prince upon which some of our English and Irish Writers who condemn these practices think they have great advantages That Dâ—cree was procured by Gersons means who observing that by the many Rebellions that had been generally set on by Popes the Persons of Princes were brought under such contempt that private Assassinations came to be practised and in particular that of the Duke of Orleance by the Duke of Burgundy Therefore to prevent the fatal consequences which were like to follow on that and to hinder such practices for the future he with great earnestness followed that matter And tho it had almost cost him his life it is like from some of the Duke of Orleance his Faction who were resolved on a Revenge yet at last he procured it But this was only a Condemnation of private Cut-throats And the Article condemned had a pretty Reservation in it for it strikes only against Subjects killing their Prince without waiting for the Sentence of any Judg whatsoever So if a Sentence be past by the Spiritual Judg then this Condemnation notwithstanding a Prince may be Murthered And the other Decree of that Council passed in the same Session shew they had no mind to part with the Deposing Power Besides the Answer to this Decree is clear It is acknowledged by the Defenders of the contrary opinion That it is not lawful in any case to kill a King but when one that was a King is no more such but becomes a Rebel and an Usurper then it is lawful to kill him Pursuant to the Decree made at Constance a Council met at Siena ten years after in which all the former Decrees made against Hereticks are confirmed and the Favourers or Fautors of Heresie are delared liable to all the pains and censures of Hereticks and by consequence to the chief of them all Deposition After that came the Council of Basil which ratified the forementioned Decree made at Constance about General Councils By which Popes Emperors Kings c. that presumed to hinder any from coming to the Council are subjected to Excommunication Interdicts and other Punishment Spiritual and Temporal Last of all came the Council of Trent and tho matters were at that pass that the Council durst not tread on Princes as others had formerly done lest they should have been thereby provoked to join with the Protestants yet they would not quite lay aside the pretence of a Deposing power but resolved to couch it so into some Decree that it might continue their claim to a Right which they would not part with tho they knew not at that time what to make of it So in the Decree against Duels they declare That if any Emperors Kings c. did assign a field for a Combat that they did thereby lose their Right to that place and the City Castle or other places about it Now it is certain if by their Decrees a Prince may forfeit any part of his Dominion he may be also dispossessed of all the rest since his Title to his whole Territory being one individual thing what shakes it in any part subjects it entirely to him who has such authority over it Here we have found 7 General Councils as they are esteemed by that Church all either expresly asserting the Deposing Power or ratifying former Decrees that