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A61561
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The Jesuits loyalty, manifested in three several treatises lately written by them against the oath of allegeance with a preface shewing the pernicious consequence of their principles as to civil government.
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Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.
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1677
(1677)
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Wing S5599; ESTC R232544
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134,519
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200
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the Affirmative of the latter Question and onely differ as to the Persons in whom the Power of calling Princes to an Account doth lie whether it be in the Pope or the People And even as to this they do not differ so much as men may at first imagine For however the Primitive Christians thought it no Flattery to Princes to derive their Power immediately from God and to make them accountable to him alone as being Superiour to all below him as might be easily proved by multitudes of Testimonies yet after the Pope's Deposing Power came into request the Commonwealth-Principles did so too and the Power of Princes was said to be of another Original and therefore they were accountable to the People Thus Gregory VII that holy and meek-spirited Pope not onely took upon him to Depose the Emperour and absolve his Subjects from their Allegeance but he makes the first constitution of Monarchical Government to be a meer Vsurpation upon the just Rights and Liberties of the People For he saith That Kings and Princes had their beginning from those who being ignorant of God got the power into their hands over their equals through the instigation of the Devil and by their pride rapine perfidiousness murther ambition intolerable presumption and all manner of wickedness This excellent account of the Original of Monarchical Government we have from that famous Leveller Gregory VII that most Holy and Learned Pope who for his Sanctity and Miracles was canonized for a Saint as the Authour of the First Treatise notably observes Did ever any Remonstrance Declaration of the Army or Agreement of the People give a worse account of the beginning of Monarchy then this Infallible Head of the Church doth What follows from hence but the justifying all Rebellion against Princes which upon these Principles would be nothing else but the People's recovering their just Rights against intolerable Usurpations For shame Gentlemen never upbraid us more with the pernicious Doctrines of the late Times as to Civil Government The very worst of our Fanaticks never talked so reproachfully of it as your canonized Saint doth Their Principles and Practices we of the Church of England profess to detest and abhorre but I do not see how those can doe it who have that Self-denying Saint Gregory VII in such mighty veneration I pray Gentlemen tell me what Divine Assistence this good Pope had when he gave this admirable Account of the Original of Civil Government and whether it be not very possible upon his Principles for men to be Saints and Rebells at the same time I have had the curiosity to enquire into the Principles of Civil Government among the fierce Contenders for the Pope's Deposing power and I have found those Hypotheses avowed and maintained which justifie all the Practices of our late Regicides who when they wanted materials and Examples of former Ages when they had a mind to seem learned in Rebellion they found no Smith in Israel but went down to the Philistins to sharpen their fatal Axe Else how came the Book of Succession to the Crown of England to be shred into so many Speeches and licensed then by such Authority as they had to justify their Proceedings against our late Sovereign of glorious Memory Wherein the main design is to prove That Commonwealths have sometimes lawfully chastised their lawfull Princes though never so lawfully descended or otherwise lawfully put in possession of their Crowns and that this hath fallen out ever or for the most part commodious to the Weal-publick and that it may seem that God approved and prospered the same by the good Success and Successours that ensued thereof These were the Principles of the most considerable men of that Party here in England at that time For it is a great and common mistake in those that think the Book of Succession to have been written by F. Parsons alone For he tells us that Card. Allen Sir Francis Inglefield and other principal persons of our Nation are known to have concurred to the laying together of that Book as by their own hands is yet extant and this to the publick benefit of our Catholick Cause First that English Catholicks might understand what special and precise Obligation they have to respect Religion in admitting any new Prince above all other Respects humane under heaven And this is handled largely clearly and with great variety of learning reasons doctrine and examples throughout the First Book This was purposely intended for the Exclusion of His Majestie 's Royall Family K. Iames being then known to be a firm Protestant and therefore two Breves were obtained from the Pope to exclude him from the Succession which were sent to Garnet Provincial of the Iesuits One began Dilectis Filiis Principibus Nobilibus Catholicis the other Dilecto Filio Archipresbytero reliquo Clero Anglicano In both which the Pope exhorts them not to suffer any person to succeed in the Crown of England how near soever in Bloud unless he would not barely tolerate the Catholick Faith but promote it to the utmost and swear to maintain it By virtue of which Apostolical Sentence Catesby justified himself in the Gun-powder-Treason For saith he if it were lawfull to exclude the King from the Succession it is lawfull to cast him out of Possession and that is my work and shall be my care Thus we see the Pope's Deposing power was maintained here in England by such who saw how necessary it was for their purpose to defend the Power of Commonwealths over their Princes either to exclude them from Succession to the Crown or to deprive them of the Possession of it The same we shall find in France in the time of the Solemn League and Covenant there in the Reigns of Henry III. and IV. For those who were engaged so deep in Rebellion against their lawfull Princes found it necessary for them to insist on the Pope's Power to depose and the People's to deprive their Sovereigns Both these are joyned together in the Book written about the just Reasons of casting off Henry III. by one who was then a Doctour of the Sorbon wherein the Authour begins with the Power of the Church but he passes from that to the Power of the People He asserts the Fundamental and Radical Power to be so in them that they may call Princes to account for Treason against the People which he endeavours at large to prove by Reason by Scripture by Examples of all sorts forrein and domestick And he adds That in such cases they are not to stand upon the niceties and forms of Law but that the necessities of State do supersede all those things If this man had been of Counsel for the late Regicides he could not more effectually have pleaded their Cause The next year after the Murther of Henry III. by a Monk acted and inspired by these Rebellious Principles came forth another virulent Book against Henry IV. under the name
Princes either by reason of some Civill Insufficiency in the Prince to govern or some light cause mentioned by Sanctarellus or upon the meer account of Heresy or Apostasy though they should permit their Subjects to enjoy Liberty of conscience which seems to have been the Doctrine of Sanctarellus If so then our case is very different concerning the present Point For neither Bellarmine nor Peron against whom our Adversaries do so hotly inveigh do speak of a meer Civill Insufficiency neither do they affirm that a Prince may lawfully be deposed meerly because he is an Heretick unless moreover he forces his Subjects to be so too by persecuting them And yet in the Oath we are bound to swear that the Pope has not any Power whatsoever in any case possible to depose an Hereticall Prince whether he persecutes his Subjects or not 75. Consider Eighthly that though in the forementioned Decree Sanctarellus his Propositions be condemned as contrary to the Word of God yet this is not properly to condemn them as our Adversaries pretend for Hereticall unless they be declared as such by the Church as to approve a Proposition as agreeable to the Word of God is not to approve it as an Article of Faith according to what above has been insinuated And there is scarce any Scholasticall Question of Divinity wherein the Defenders of either side do not endeavour to prove their Opinion out of Scripture and consequently they look upon the opposite Sentence as contrary to the Word of God yet they are far from censuring it therefore as Hereticall and often prohibited so to doe Nay Protestants who affirm those Tenets wherein we differ from them to be repugnant to Scripture and pretend to prove they are so yet they do withall confess that they are no Heresies So that as well Protestants as Catholicks according to the plain and common sense of the words understand somewhat more by an Hereticall Opinion then an Opinion contrary to the Word of God 77. Concerning other things relating to the Authority of France contained in the Objection Consider First that the Authour of a Book entitled Some few Questions concerning the Oath of Allegeance page 8. sets down an Arrest of the Parliament of Paris wherein the Iesuits were ordered as he pretends to subscribe the forementioned Decree or Censure against Sanctarellus his Book But this is a great Mistake if the Arrest be understood of that Decree For that Decree was made upon the 20. of April 1626. and the Arrest was dated the 17 th of March 1626. wherein the Iesuits were commanded to subscribe within three days so that according to this account they were to subscribe a Decree 37 days before it was made and the Censure of the Sorbon mentioned in the Decree was passed the 4 th of April 1626. so that were the Arrest to be understood of this Censure they were to subscribe 15 days before it past which is ridiculous Besides should we grant that the Iesuits had subscribed the forementioned Decree and Censure we have already seen how little that Decree or the Censure therein contained does favour the Lawfulness of this Oath and consequently neither can the Subscription of the Iesuits to such a Censure and Decree help much thereunto For they would not therefore subscribe or approve the Oath as it lies nor affirm that one might positively swear that the Pope has no Power whatsoever to depose Princes and much less that one might swear that he abjures the contrary as Hereticall all which is required in the Oath since the University or Parliament of Paris never required any such Oath or Subscription Nay one's Subscription signifies no more but that he thinks the thing he subscribes to be true yet one may think a thing to be true though he will not swear nor counsell any other to swear it is so 78. Consider Secondly that there are some other Propositions alledged out of France in favour of this Oath which are commonly held in that Kingdome viz. That his most Christian Majesty does not receive his Kingdome but from God and his Sword That he does not acknowledge any other Superiour in his Kingdome but onely God which is to be understood in Temporalls for he acknowledges the Pope to be his Superiour in Spiritualls Now even those who refuse the Oath do confess the same of His Majesty Neither is an indirect and conditionall Power to depose Kings which some ascribe to the Pope in certain cases inconsistent with such Prerogatives For every King has an indirect and conditionall Power or Right to wage war against any other Sovereign though he receives his Government immediately from God and to depose him too in case he injures such a King or his Subjects as it is possible he may and refuses when required thereunto to give any reasonable satisfaction What good English Subject is there who in the late Dutch War which we suppose to have been just on our side would have sworn that His Majesty had not Right and Power to Depose the States Generall whom we acknowledge to be Sovereign and to depend of God alone in Temporalls and consequently to absolve their Subjects from their Oath of Allegeance made to them in case they had persisted to refuse to give His Majesty the satisfaction that was due and what satisfaction was due His Majesty was to be judge So that were this indirect Deposing power inconsistent with the Sovereignty of Princes there would be no Sovereign Prince at all And since the Pope is Sovereign Temporall Prince of Rome and its adjacent Territories as even Protestants confess he must have the like indirect Deposing power or right which is inherent in every Sovereign Temporall Prince as even our Adversaries will not deny And yet if we take the Oath we must swear or testify before God which certainly is to swear That the Pope neither of himself nor by any Authority of the Church of Rome has any Power to depose Kings that is neither Temporall nor Spirituall neither direct nor indirect for the Proposition is Negative and by consequence denies all Power whatsoever 79. And here I cannot but ask our Adversaries a question which is Whether either they or Protestants do affirm that all Wars whatsoever undertaken by Christian Princes whereof some are styled Defenders of the Faith others Catholick Majesties others most Christian Majesties in Defence of the Orthodox Religion against another Prince a Persecutour of the true Church and declared to be such by a lawfull and competent Judge whether I say they affirm that all such Wars are unjust and unlawfull and if not whether the Pope may not declare a Sovereign Prince to be an Heretick and a Persecutour of the Church if really he be such and whether if he may make such a Declaration as being a lawfull Judge in matters of that nature according to the unanimous consent of Catholicks he may not also in that case invoke the help of some pious and powerfull Christian