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
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
the Belief of Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass the denying the Chalice to the Laity the redeeming Souls out of Purgatory with many other things of the like nature will be soon taken off of the File And indeed in this sence the deposing Doctrine is so far from being a Tradition that we have as undeniable Evidences that the Church for the first six Ages knew nothing of it but on the contrary abhorred the thoughts of it as we have that their Church these last six Ages has set it up From which among many other Reasons we conclude that these latter Ages have not been acted with the same Spirit nor followed the same Doctrine that was the Rule of the former Ages There is more than enough said to shew that these Doctrines are a part of their Faith from which they can never extricate themselves but by confessing either that their Church has erred or that Tradition is no true Conveyance when they do either of these they turn their Backs of Rome and are in a fair away to come over to our Church with which purpose I pray God inspire them The mean while it is no wonder if those of that Communion have been guilty of such horrid Plots and Rebellions every where especially in England since Henry the 8th's time There was in his Reign First a Rebellion in Lincolnshire another greater one in the North and some lesser ones after that In Edward the 6th's time there were Risings both in the North and in the West But these succeeded so ill and turned only to the ruine of their own Party that they resolved to try secreter ways in Queen Elizabeth's time in whose long and blessed Reign there scarce passed one year in which there was not some Plot against her Life There was not Matter enough to work upon for raising any considerable Rebellion in England But in Ireland there were more frequent attempts that way It is true the Care and Providence of God was too hard for all their Plots how closely soever laid and they were turned back on themselves not so much to the ruine of the chief Plotters who were wise enough to conveigh themselves out of the way as of many Noble Families that were poysoned with their ill Principles All the Blood which the State was forced to shed lies at their door who were continually giving fresh Provocations And for King James not to mention the Conspiracies against him in Scotland nor that Plot of Cobham and Watson upon his first coming to this Crown the Gun-powder Treason was a thing that went beyond all the wicked Designs that had been ever in any Age contrived And when his late Majesty was Embroiled in his Affairs in this Island how did they take advantage from that Conjuncture to break out into a most horrid Rebellion in Ireland joyned with a Massacre of Persons of whatsoever Age or Sex or Condition Which was so far set on by Rome that a Nuncio came publickly to direct their Councils I will not dwell on Particulars that are sufficiently known but only name these things to shew That no Reign of any of our Princes since the Reformation has been free from the dismal effects of these Doctrines And for his Sacred Majesty who now Reigns whom God long preserve from their Malice they have felt such signal marks of his Royal Clemency that they can have no colour to complain except it be because they cannot bear any Office in the Nation For what Noise soever they make of the severe Laws yet in force both against the Clergy and Laity of their Religion they cannot pretend that since his Majesties happy Restauration any Priest has died or any Family has been ruined for their Religion But I confess it is enough according to the Doctrine of their Church to discharge them of their Allegiance That the King is a favourer of Heresy and if upon this Reason they will still Plot and Conspire against his Person and Government we have no reason to wonder at it for they act according to their Principles Nor have these Islands been the only Scenes in which those Principles have produced such dismal Effects If we look abroad and reflect on what was done in France we shall find they have had the same Operation there I need not mention that perfidious and cruel Massacre that as Thuanus tells us was so much extolled in Rome and Spain and of which the Pope has a Memorial kept in the Hangings at the entrance of his Chappel to this day The Barricadoes of Paris the design of Deposing Henry the 3d only because he had made Peace with the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde the whole progress of the holy League their taking Arms against that King when the Duke and Cardinal of Guise were killed by his Orders and at last his being stabbed by Clement a Dominican Friar are Instances beyond exception The prosecution of the Rebellion against Henry the 4th the attempt made upon his Person by John Chastel which was more successful in Ravilliack's hands shew sufficiently That a Princes turning from that which they call Heresie over to their Church does not secure him unless he will extirpate Hereticks For tho Henry the 4th changed his Religion yet the favour he shewed the Protestants in the Edict of Nantes was a thing never to be forgiven These things were set on and encouraged from Rome and pleaded for by their Writers That the holy League was authorized from Rome that Sixtus the 5th by his Bulls declared the King of Navar incapable of the Succession that he intended to have Deposed Henry the 3d and that he rejoyced at his death and magnified the Fact preferring it to Eleazar's killing the Elephant and Judeth's killing Hollofernes and ascribed it to a singular Providence and Disposition of the Almighty called it a great Miracle and appeared vain that a Friar had done it having been one himself tho no doubt he had liked it better if Clement had been of his own sute and would have had himself thought a Prophet for foretelling it and so he might well do perhaps and in the end concluded That unfortunate Kings favouring Hereticks to be the unpardonable Sin against the Holy Ghost These were all so publickly done that it were a needless labour to go about the proving them Franois Veronne wrote a Book to justify both the Facts of Clement the Dominican and Chastel as well he might from the Principles of their Church After all these dismal Facts was it not time for the States of France to think of some effectual Remedy to prevent the like for the future And they judged aright that without Condemning the Deposing Power it could not be done To which as was already hinted the Clergy made such vigorous Opposition that it came to nothing If these things had flowed only from the heat of some violent Spirits the danger were not so great but it is the Doctrine of their Church so Lessius under the name of Singletonus says That if the power of Deposing lies not in the Pope the Church must of necessity Err which has taught it and to assert that is Heretical and a more intollerable Error than any about the Sacrament can be And Becanus Confessor to Ferdinand the 2d says No Man doubts but if Princes are Contumacious the Pope may order their Lives to be taken away What security then can there be found out from Persons who give up their Consciences to the conduct of Men of such Principles and profess an Implicite Obedience and belief of all that their Church teaches and commands which possesses all its Votaries with such cursed rage against Hereticks that not content to adjudg them to eternal Flames in another Life they must needs Persecute and Burn without Mercy where they have the Power in their Hands and Plot and Conspire Kill and Massacre without relenting where they have not Power to do it with any colour of Law Men of Honour will not be easily drawn in to such Practices But in Conclusion when a fit Opportunity appears they must either forsake their Church or concur in the most mischievous Designs that the Masters of their Consciences will draw them into which I pray God make them see in good time before they are Involved in such Snares that Repentance will come too late to do them good or to preserve the Nation from those Miseries that they will bring upon it FINIS a In regiam Majest Br. l. 6. c. 4. sect 20 Ã quocunque privato poteris interfici In Thom. Tom. 3. Disp. 151. q 12. p. 2. b Romish Treâ—sons l. 2. cap. 4. The Life of Gerson before his Works and Tom. 1. p. 375. Recog in lib. 5. de Rom. Pont. e Philopater p. 106 107. f Greg. M. l. 2 post Ep. 38. lib 11. Ep. 10 11 12. Siquis Regum c. contravenire tentaverit potestatis honorisque sui dignitate careat in alio honore suo privetur g Baron ad An. 730. n. 5. h Bellar. de Trans Imperii Romani i Dictatus l. 2. post Ep. 55. k Lib 2. Ep 5. ad Ep. France l Liv. 8. Ep. 21. m Extra de Major Obed cap. 1. n Bellar. de Pont. Rom. lib. 5. c. 151. a Cuspiman in vita Albert. p Cap. de Major ut Obed Exter b In Vandal l. 8. c. 2. r Chron. Hirsaug in vita Abb. Hartiingi s Bar. ad Ann. 593. Num. 86. t Bar. ad An. 730. Num. 5. u In his Diverses Oevres and Recueil General des Affaires dis Clerge de France Conc. Late 3. Chap. 27. anno 1287. Tom 28. Conc. Later 4. Can. 3. Tom. 28. The same Council that established Transubstantiation Math. Paris ad An. 1253. Conc. Lugd. Tom. 28. Conc. Const. Tom. 29. Sess. 19. Sess. 15. Sess. 17. Sess. 15. Con Sien Tom. 29. Con. Basil. Tom. 29. Conc. Trid. Sess. 25 c. 19. Bud. de Asse lib. 5. Diseuss Decree Con. Lateran p. 46. Bec. Controv. Angl. p. 115.