is unknown is full full of Mysteries hence Objects of such a nature are apt to surprise us and we hereupon are awed at them and do admire them Such effects the greatness of an unsearchable high-descending Pedigree does produce Nor need we much scruple to affirm that this kind is the only proper and genuine Nobility and that the Two others are only Nobilitations What difference is made between a person Noble and one Ennobled is familiarly known This first kind of Nobility is thought to require a possession of the Virtue of Ancestors and withal a possession of their wealth this too in so essential a manner that if each of them be not joyntly possess'd the Nobility is extinct We daily see proofs that evince the Justice and the Truth of this Notion Be it intimated by the way that the Virtue here mention'd is the Military Art The Second kind of Nobility is that which takes its rise from Offices and eminent Employments unto which the Laws have annexed this mark of Honour The Third is acquir'd by the Prince's Letters which are called Letters of Nobilitation It is a right peculiar to the Kind to give such Letters as the Roman Panegyrist once said to the Emperor Trajan It belongs not but to Caesar to create a Nobility It is for none but the King to Honour brave aud valiant Subjects with this Quality This Third and last kind is least considered because the Person who acquires it hath not the Virtue of Ancestors for a foundation and caution of his own Yet it is sometimes more considerable than either of the two others and Marius in Salust had great reason to tell the Gentlemen of Rome that he had rather begin the Nobility of his Race than faintly continue it or unworthily lose it and that it was more Glorious for him to transmit to his Posterity a sparkling Virtue hard to be follow'd than plod slowly on upon the slight and almost effaced tracks of a common Virtue which his Ancestors had left him In all these three kinds of Nobility there must be the personal Virtue of the Person invested with 'em for when all is done it is but Virtue that confers effective worth All Nations have had a particular esteem for Nobility nor can any well-order'd Common-wealth be named which hath not invented some singular mark of Honour to make it conspicuous The French in this point have surpass'd and out-done all People upon Earth as for the first Antiquity Caesar observes that the Nobles that is the Gentlemen had among the Gauls as much power over the Plebeians as Masters at Rome had over their Slaves After Gaul was reduced to the State of a Province Nobility preserved its ancient Prerogatives and the Emperors knowing that the Nobles loved Glory and sought it above all things stiled them Honorati and gave them an absolute precedency in all Assemblies of the Gauls For the Romans had thought it necessary to weaken the Authority of the Druids In the time of Christianity the same Order was continued and the Nobility gave their Suffrage apart in the Election of Bishops expresly before the People yea even before the Clergy themselves Upon the declining of the Empire the Gentlemen did in France judge the Causes of their equals and hence without doubt came into use the Parliaments Courts and Assemblies which our Kings held of their Peers and Barons that is of the qualify'd Gentlemen of their Kingdom when a Case of some Peer or Grandee of the State was to be Tried The Nobles were distinguish'd anciently from Plebeians by their Hair which they wore long for a mark of their ancient Liberty and when any one of them committed a fault that was unbeseeming his Birth the rest Sentenc'd him to depart the Country or cut off his Hair This was therefore a no less punishment than Exile In Charlemagne's time the Gentlemen of France named themselves Franks by way of Excellence In fine the French Nobility hath alwavs had such an high degree of Excellency and so great a pre-eminence that it was preferr'd in all Cases as when vacant Bishopricks or Abbies were to be provided for or when the principal Magistracy and Seats of Judicature were to be fill'd up or the Government of important Places Warlike imployment and the Leading of Armies were to be dispoled of To conclude this Matter it may be affirm'd that Kings did take the Gentlemen into a partnership with themselves as I may term it in the Regality they honour'd them with part of their Power by conferring on them Fiefs and by entrusting them with the charge of doing Justice and of Commissioning Officers to that end Hereupon it was necessary to put a gradual difference between Gentlemen themselves nor is it indeed sufficient that they all have so many excellent Prerogatives above the vulgar or common sort as we call them For Nature is alike in every Man and all Men are Born equal Fortune on the contrary and Virtue distinguish one from another But natural Reason requires there be Order in all things 'T is Order that makes the Beauty and Symmetry of the Universe Now as a Musical Consort doth not make a perfect harmony but by a diversity of Notes so a Political State can be neither comely nor compleat unless there be a difference between the parts that compose it I know that Nobility being as Philosophers call it an Inherent Quality does lodge with its whole Essence in each of its Subjects As the quality of a Soldier is for its Essence in the person of a Corporal as well as of a Captain or General Officer Yet there is a great distance and many intervening degrees between a General and the meanest Musquetier in an Army Thus the meanest Gentleman in the Kingdom is Noble and to speak after the common Proverb is Noble as well as the King but the one is severed from the other by an immense graduation So though all Gentlemen be equal in Nobility yet they are not so in Riches in Lands in Alliance in Friends in Offices in Authority in Age and in Reputation Again they are not equal in Spirit in Knowledge in Experience nor in Wisdom therefore it hath been with much prudence ordered that they should have some external marks of these differences and for this end there have been created Princes Dukes Counts Marquesses Barons Knights Batchelers Esquires leave hath been given them to bear Helmets and Crowns upon their Armories In short no pains have been spared to find out things that might any way adorn their Quality and their Valour hath been publickly rewarded for an excitement of others to a generous emulation Here I cannot forbear to blame those Gentlemen who give themselves the Title of Knights of Marquesses or of Counts by their own private Authority This is a shameful Usurpation and so far from heightening the Luster of Nobility that it injures them For a Gentleman who takes upon him the quality of a Marquess and well knows he is
would need neither Law nor Magistrate to keep them in perfect tranquility But Nature being corrupted we no longer consult that Original Righteousness which is inseparable from reason and which without intermission inwardly presseth us to render to all their due as exactly as we would should be done to ourselves Always self-love often necessity sometimes hatred avarice or one passion or other does blind us and induce us to violate this eminently holy and equitable Law in such sort also that we suffer ourselves to be transported unto excesses hard to be believed We equally use fraud and force to content our injustice and irregular desires Whereupon it hath been commodiously done by wise Men to form as may be said a new reason which they called Law But because Laws are of no use except they be armed with Correction to punish such as despise them and have some soul and living principle therefore Magistrates have been created who are to pronounce the Oracles which those Laws inspire to put the Laws in Execution and maintain the Authority of them These Officers are chosen of the best and most intelligent Men in a State and if Common-wealths be duly regulated ordinarily the Rich are preferred before the Poor and Nobles before Plebeians because 't is supposed they have a greater measure of knowledge and virtue and by consequence are less capable of certain mean things in which a necessitous condition and a mean extraction might engage them Thus Ministers of Justice in France call'd Men of the Robe are in truth necessary in Publick Society For if there was no evil-doer Laws and Magistrates would be of no more use than Joyners and the Doors they make for the security of Houses if there were no Thieves whereas should not a Man in a whole Kingdom ever swerve from right reason and pure equity there must nevertheless be Priests for Religion Soldiers for defence against Foreign Invasions that might happen and People who may some of 'em Till the Ground others apply themselves to Trades and Manufactures that Men cannot be without So that these three sorts of Persons are inseparable from a Common-wealth and they make up the Three Estates we have spoken of which have been receiv'd without any contest Yet it seems that of late the Parliaments have sought to infuse into some green heads that they compos'd a Fourth Order in the Kingdom and the same not only distinct from the other Three but altogether superiour to them by reason of their Sovereignty and of the Power they have to deliberate upon the pleasure and Edicts of the King If they should not be brought off from this opinion perhaps they would draw the other Sovereign Courts and Officers of Judicature into the same Error an Union of them all not being deniable because otherwise the affair of Justice would in France form two bodies which may not be But from allowing this Fourth Body in the State namely that of Justice a ridiculous inconvenience would follow to wit that a Sergeant or Catchpole of a Village would be a member of a body superior to that of the Nobility and by consequence in some sort superior to a Marquis For in matter of Hierarchy the last of a more excellent Order is greater than the first of a less excellent one as the lowest of the Arch-Angels is greater than the highest of the Angels But to clear the difficulty before us it must be remembred that heretofore in France the Estates which were called Parliaments did assemble twice a year for two considerations one was to judge of Appeals that were made from judgments pass'd by inferior Officers The other to give the King Counsel when He demanded their Opinion about Government of the State For alway during the first and second Race the King 's did dispose of Publick Affairs as of Peace and War and this is so much a truth that if those ancient Parliaments had had the disposing of the State they would never have suffered that the Children of Lewis when they had divided the Kingdom among them should have fallen to make War one upon another which could tend to nothing but a publick desolation They would as little have permitted the enmities of Brize Haudet and Fredegonde In like manner under the Second Race they would not have endured that the Sons of Lewis the Mild should act such outrages on their Father that Charles the Bald should have given Neustria to the Normans In the Third Race that Lewis the Gross should have ruin'd so many great Lords who made up the greatest-part of the Parliaments that Lewis the Younger should have yielded up Guienne by the Divorce of Eleanore that the Count of Burgundy and the Duke of Britannie and some others should have leagu'd together against Queen Blanche In fine there are thousand and a thousand examples in History which do evidence that these Kings always had the free and Sovereign administration of their State nor will there one be found to prove that the Parliaments ever contradicted them They presented themselves at the feet of their Princes with Petitions and humble Remonstrances they made no resistance nor exercis'd Authority So that our King 's have been King's indeed always absolute Masters and for proof hereof it will be sufficient to look into all the Statutes there it may be seen how they spake and what part the Estates had in them The principal end of Parliaments therefore was to the end the Law-suits of particular Persons and people perceiving that Appeals brought to them were received and sentences invalidated many to try Opinions in their cases once again became Appellants by this means affairs were multiply'd and that contesting parties might not have the trouble to come up from the remotest parts of the Kingdom Deputies of the General Parliament were appointed they also stiled Parliaments and to be ambulatory The Commission they had was sometimes for three Months sometimes for six according to exigence of State but alway by the Command and Letters of the King These Parliaments went into the Provinces to judge the causes that were brought them almost in like manner as we now see done at the Extraordinary Sessions which instead of diminishing the number of Causes to be dispatch'd as had been conceiv'd really augmented them Philip the Fair saw cause to make such a Parliament sedentary at Paris another at Rouen a third at Thoulouse and succeeding Kings establish'd others in other Cities as they are at present From this faithful account it resulteth that the Parliaments are not a Fourth Body in the State but be extracted out of the Three ancient Orders at first they were taken out of the Clergy and Nobility only because the Commons at that time were not considerable afterwards These also were received in Other Sovereign Societies are but Images of these Parliaments As to the Sovereignty of the Parliaments themselves it neither is nor ever was other than an emination of the Sovereignty of the King in whom
mind Insomuch that he was not content to make the Popes Opinion be condemn'd in this Synod assembled pro forma at least by order of the Pope but he sent to the Pope a Book which he writ against the Second Council of Nice and against Images which we have still to this day After that Charlemain had rais'd the Pope in giving him a good share of the Country which he had taken from the Lombards the Popes began to be puft up extreamly and by little and little made themselves formidable taking upon them the Figure of Judges and Correctors of the Actions of Princes throughout Christendom by Excommunications Interdictions and finally by the Deposition of their Crowns Now 't is very remarkable that whereas by their imaginary Arms they have laid at their feet the Emperors of Germany and and the Kings of England and brought their Estates into a miserable confusion yet had they never the like success against France they never have been able to Depose our Kings never could prevail to have any Interdict receiv'd in their Kingdoms which so often as they attempted they were mock'd their Officers beaten and their Partisans ruin'd But alas the Submission which Henry the Great made to the Pope the only Instance that we can be reproacht withal is a cooling cast in our way Under Lewis the Debonnaire was held at Paris a Council against Images that is to say against the Pope who maintain'd them Of which Council we have all the Acts entire And in the beginning of his Reign Claudius Bishop of Turin broke down all the Images he could find within his Diocess and listed himself against the Bishop of Rome who stood for their Adoration and writ a Book against Images and the Pope durst not be angry because this Bishop was supported by the Authority of Lewis Great Troubles being stirr'd in France Gregory the Fourth confederates with the Sons of this Lewis too Debonnaire who had engag'd in a wicked Conspiracy against their own Father Sigebert about an 832. testifies That Pope Gregory came into France and took part against the Emperor with his Sons And the Annals written at the same time Bochel Decret Eccl. Gall. l. 2. tit 16. and the continuer of Aimoinus a Religious of St. Benet writes That the resolution of the French Bishops was that they would by no means yield to his Will and that if he came to Excommunicate them they would Excommunicate him again After this Pope Nicholas the First Excommunicated King Lotharius for in those days Deposing was not talkt on to make him leave Waldrade and take again Thetherge his former Wife Whereupon the Articles drawn up by the French and which may be seen in Hinemar Archbishop of Bheims import That the Bishops hold that as the King ought not to be Excommunicated by his Bishops so can he not be judged by other Bishops because he ought to be subject to the Empire of God alone who alone could establish him in his Kingdom Then also the Clergy of France writ to the Pope Letters full of hard words related by Aventin in his Annals of Bavaria insomuch as to call him Thief Wolf and Tyrant The Popes growing in Insolence Adrian II. took upon him to command King Charles the Bald to leave the Kingdom of Lotharius entirely to his Son Lewis The same Hincmar a Man of great Authority in his time writ several Letters to him containing many Remonstrances on this occasion and amongst other matters informs him That the Church-men and the Seculars of the Realm assembled at Rheims have said and say by way of reproach That never was such a Command sent from that See to any of our Predecessors He adds That Bishops and Secular Lords us'd threatnings against the Pope which he dares not repeat And for the King's part see how little he valued the Pope's Commands amongst the Epistles of the said Hincmar are to be found the Letters of Charles the Bald to Pope Adrian wherein after having charg'd him with Pride and Usurpation he adds What pit of Hell has vomited out this preposterous Law What Infernal Gulf has disgorg'd it from the black and dismal Dungeons quite contrary to the way that is set before us by the Holy Scripture And he forbids the Pope to send any more such Commands to him or to his Bishops unless he would be content to meet with contempt and dishonor Pope Vrban excommunicated Philip the First and set his Kingdom under an Interdict Innocent the Third did as much to Philip the August But nether of their Thunderbolts had any effect and were only receiv'd with Mockery Which agrees with the relation of Mat. Paris that after the Pope had declar'd to Philip the August by the Cardinal D'Anagnia that he would set his Land under an Interdict unless he would reconcile himself with the King of England the King answered That he was not at all afraid of his Sentence seeing that it was not founded upon any just cause adding moreover that it belong'd not to the Church of Rome to pronounce Sentence against the King of France the which Du Tillet Clerk of the Parliament tells us was done by the advice of his Barons But what was ever more memorable in History than the truly Royal Courage of Philip the Fair an 1302 Boniface VIII that Monster of Pride was irritated against him because he held Prisoner the Bishop of Pamiers who had spoken defamatory words against him and moreover for that he assum'd to himself the Collation of Benefices The Pope then commands him to release the Bishop and writ him the following Letter Fear God and keep his Commandments We will that thou take notice That thou art subject to us in Spirituals and Temporals that no Collation of Benefices and Prebends belongs to thee that if thou hast the keeping of any that are vacant thou reserve the profits for the Successors if thou goest about to make any such Collations we Decree them void and so far as in fact they are executed we revoke Those who shall believe otherwise we shall count Hereticks A Legate came to Paris with these fine Letters which were torn from him by the King's People and thrown into the fire by the Count of Artois The answer of Philip to the Pope was this Philip by the Grace of God King of the French to Boniface that calls himself Sovereign Pontifex wisheth little health or rather none at all May thy great sottishness know That in Temporals we are subject unto none that the Collation of Churches and Prebends belongs to us by our right of Royalty and also to take to our selves the profits during the Vacancies That the Collations made by us and to be made shall be strong and good and that by vertue thereof we will defend those in possession courageously Those who believe otherwise we count Fools and Mad-men The Pope thus provok'd Excommunicates the King but no body durst publish the Excommunication nor be the bearer of it Nevertheless
who is so clear-sighted see what an impoverishment it is to his Kingdom that France be tributary to a Stranger under the Title of Annates Offerings Dispensations Absolutions and Causes Matrimonial Against these Depredations our ancient Kings had provided some remedy by the pragmatick Sanctions vext to see the fairest Revenue of the Kingdom pass over the Alps by a Religious spoil and go into the Purses of those who laugh at our simplicity But what reason is there that they who pay so willingly Tribute to the Pope should make so great difficulty in paying to the King Is it not because they believe they owe all to the Pope and nought to the King St. Paul teaches them to pay Tribute to the Higher Powers inasmuch as they are Ministess of God And St. Chrysostom commenting upon this Text tells them who are these higher Powers If says he the Apostle has establisht this Law whilst the Princes were Pagans how much more ought this to be done under Princes that are Believers And he had said before The Apostle commands this to all even to the Priests Which is more he adds though thou art an Apostle though thou art an Evangelist or a Prophet or what ever else thou art From St. Ambrose we have the same Lesson in his Oration of delivering the Temples If Tribute be demanded refuse it not the Lands of the Church pay Tribute Even Pope Vrban and the Roman Decretal say That the Church pays Tribute of its exterior Goods Also That Tribute must be paid to the Emperors in acknowledgment of the Peace and Repose in which they ought to maintain and defend us The right of Kings and Truth must needs be very strong that could draw from the Pope and his Canonistical Doctors this acknowledgment For the Canon Law was not founded for any other end but to supplant the Civil Laws and establish the Popes Jurisdiction throughout This is a Body of Foreign Laws that have their Tribunal apart and that depends on a Foreign Prince and where the King has nothing to do but look on I mean till such time as he shall please to take cognizance of so unreasonable an Usurpation And forbid that any Cause be judged in France by other Authority than His and much less any Cause commenc'd in France be appeal'd to Rome And in truth he is but a King by halfs till he alone possess all the Jurisdiction exercis'd within his Kingdom This is what Charles du Moulin said in an Epistle to Henry II. where he writes freely against the Empire that the Pope has set up within our France where the Pope has Subjects that submit not to the Laws of the King but to those of the Pope which are the Canon-Law and the Constitutions that come from Rome But some may object Would you have the King judge in Spirituals I Answer That if the King ought not to be Judge it does not follow that the Pope must The King has his Bishops that may and ought to judge of matters purely Spiritual but of nought without being authoriz'd by the King and there is no need of an Authority out of the Kingdom for this I will say more That the Ecclesiastical Government is a part of the Office of a King For so it was in the Kingdom of Israel And who would believe that in this Age and in Spain where the Inquisition Reigns King Philip IV. assum'd to himself the Soveraign Power of Churches within his Dominions For this purpose he apply'd that excellent passage of Isodore which is attributed also to the Council of Paris That the Secular Princes should know that they ought to give an account of the charge of the Church committed to them by Jesus Christ for whether that the Peace or the Discipline receive improvement by believing Princes or that they are impair'd He who committed the Church to their Power will demand an account O the excellent passage O the Holy Lesson God give all Christian Kings the Grace so well to learn it that they may never leave this Charge of the Church which Jesus Christ has committed to them upon the hands of Strangers and when they have taken it into their own hands to acquit themselves worthily and render a good account Alas Alas Have Kings Eyes to see their Rights and have they no hands to maintain them Are they quick-sighted enough to perceive that the Government of the Church is committed to them and that they are to render an account to God and have they not the courage to rescue them from unjust and strange Hands that snatch them away Think they to acquit themselves of this great Account of the Government of the Church of their Kingdoms by saying That the Holy Father has discharg'd them of it when they have in their hands the power to discharge Him from his Usurpations In Truth they will never be in condition to Govern the Church committed to them they will never be but Kings by halfs till they have banisht from their Territories this pretended Spiritual Jurisdiction which destroys the Civil and which will draw under its Cognizance all sorts of Causes there being none wherein there is not some matter of Conscience or some kind of Transgression of Gods Commandments and that by consequence belongs not to the Jurisdiction of the Pope if He must be own'd the Soveraign Spiritual Judge in France The Popes themselves inform our Kings of their Right to Govern the Church Leo IV. writing to Lewis and to Lotharius did not he own that the Investiture of the Bishop comes from the Emperor and the Pope has only the Consecration Did not He beseech the Emperor to invest a person he had recommended and does he not acknowledge that the Metropolitan dares not Consecrate him without the Emperors consent And Pope John X. in his Epistle to Hereiman of Cologue about the business of Heldwin of Tongres does he not observe That the old Custom has this force that none ought to confer a Bishoprick upon any Clerk save the King to whom the Scepter has been given of God The Council held at Thionvil under Lewis the Debonnair An. 835. gives us this good Maxim That the Pope ought to be call'd Pope and Brother not Father and Pontifex and that Lewis had more Power in the Government of the Gallicane-Church than the Bishop of Rome as Agobard Bishop of Lions has it in his Treatise of the Coâ—â—â—â—…ison of the Two Governments related by Bossellus in his Decretals Gregory Turonensis does furnish us with more than Ten Examples of the right of Investiture belonging to our Kings before the Empire fell into their hands In the times of Clovis they held the Royal Right of the Investiture of Bishops They had also a Right which they call'd Regal which was the Power of enjoying vacant Bishopricks and Prebends and the moveables of Bishops dying without a Will And it is very easie to prove that under the first Line of our Kings and a long while under