the beginning of his Empire which continued but there yeares he called the Catholike Bishops home againe who had beene banished and sent into exile by Constantius his predecessour And in the end he had by fauours and his other carriage so gayned the souldiers of the Roman bands as they made almost all profession of Paganisme Whence it was that Iouian a Christian souldier being by them chosen after Iulian his death answered them that he would not commaund men who were not Christians For the answere which they made We are Christians was as much to say that all they made an outward profession of Paganisme to please Iulian yet in their heartes they continued still Christians By occasion whereof the feare of a greater ruine hauing hindered the Church from absoluing the Catholikes from the obligation of fidelity in behalfe of Iulian the Apostata they were still bound to do that which S. Austine sayth of them Aug in Psal 124. For the loue of the Emperour of Heauen they obeyed the Emperour of the Earth But some will say the Christians might well haue deposed the Emperour Valentinian for as much as they were the stronger in Millane when he would haue one of their Churches for the exercising of his Heresy therin It is true But to this the defendants of the affirmatiue part answere foure thinges The first that the memory of the Emperour Gratian his elder Brother and as it were Father and Tutor of the Emperour Valenâ—â—ar and slayne by Maximus the Tyrant and the most Catholike Prince and the greatest freind of S. Ambrose that euer was changed all the malice or euill that the Catholike people could haue had or carried towardes Valentinian into fauour and compassion and into a desire of assisting him for the reuenging of that murther and making away of his Brother The second is that Valentinian was yet so yong the sonne of so Catholike a Father as there was not any cause or ground to despaire of his conuersion which also followed within a while after and that with so great an Edification of the Church as S. Ambrose celebrateth him for one of the most Religious Emperours of his age The third that though in the beginning the people conteyned themselues within the simple boundes of petition gaue Valentinian to vnderstand We contend not O Emperour but we become Suppliantes vnto you yet when Valentinian had a meaning to proceed further the people held their owne resisted the Emperour and stood so resolute in the matter as he fearing a tumult and reuolt was constreyned to yeild vnto them Hence it is that they thought not that the commandment our Sauiour gaue to his disciples when they persecute in one Cittie to flie into another was an absolute perpetuall precept but rather a dispensation a permission accommodated to the tyme wherein the Christian people either were still vnder Pagan Emperours or had not yet the meanes to make resistance against persecutions by might and force The Fourth is that the Emperour Valentinian his owne souldiers thought not themselues so bound in way of fidelity vnto him as they belieued they could not be dispensed with when he should perseoute the Catholikes For when the tumult began to be hoat they caused it to be signified vnto him that if he would come vpon the Place he should come thither accompanied for as much as they would assist and help him if they sawe him conioyned and to take part with the Catholikes els they would put themselues in company with the troupes that held with Ambrose But the propugners of the negatiue part recurre to the Analogy of other practises of the Church say that for Heresie the owners are not depriued of their goodes and consequently much lesse Princes should be spoyled of their estates To this agayne the maynteyners of the affirmatiue part bring two answers The one is that in this our Realme Heretikes loose not their goodes and the cause is for that the execution of the lawes made against Heretikes is suspended for the conseruation of the publique peace and tranquillity But if there should creep forth some third sect in France should begin to growe and were not come to be so great and to make a notable part of the body of Estate as Arianisme or Nestorienisme it is questionles that the other two would â—udge them who should make such profession worthy to be depriued not only of their goodes but of their liues also For this is practised at Geneua where Caluin caused Seruetus to be burnt and it is the practise at this day in England where the Most Renowned moderne King of Great Britany punisheth the Arians with losse of goodes and of life The other answere is that there is a great difference between the power that owners haue ouer their goodes and that which Princes haue ouer their Estates For goodes are made for their Maisters and Princes contrariwise for their Estates neyther haue goods any soule nor can be compelled by force or by example or by perswasion of their Maisters to loose life euerlasting as subiectes may be by their Princes by meanes whereof the preiudice of the one doth not make any consequence for the other And if this question be no where found certainly decided neither by scripture nor by the decrees of the ancient Church nor by the Analogy of other Ecclesiasticall proceedinges how is it that lay persons will of their owne authority and without light and president of any generall Councell of any Oecumenicall Synod of any vniuersall Assembly of the Church yea against the greater part of the rest of the Church coÌ„uert this doctrine into an article of faith and make the Clergie to sweare it is conformable to Gods word cause them to abiure the other as a doctrine contrary to the word of God impious and detestable It is fiue and twenty yeares since those of your Order caried away by the tumult and trouble of the tyme laboured in the full Assemblie of Estates to establish one Fundamentall Law of Estate cleane contrary to that article of yours And now you propose another Fundamentall Law intituled of Estate and of Religion quite contrary to that former And will you not you but those by whose inspiration and aduise these clauses be crept into your Bill that the Laytie cause the Clergie to sweare it That the Laytie exact of the Clergie an Oath in matter of faith That the Laytie impose the Lawes of Religion vpon the men of the Church O reproach and shame Oscand all O gate set open to all sort of Heresies And shall our faith then be subiect to the varieties and inconstancy of the affections of the people who chaung euery fiue and twenty yeares And shall the flockes then be guides to their shepheardes Luc. 16. Hebr. 13. and Pastors And shall the children teach their Father And shall that then be frustrated that our Lord hath cryed aloud The scholler is not aboue the Maister And
yet these be at this day the writers whome they celebrate extoll and whome they haue in their eyes For so an authour say something against the Pope and that he put as much as he please the safetie of Kinges vnder the peoples feete him they imbrace applaude and adore And of this we neede not any better proofe then the edition of Gerson which they who haue beene the first authors of the Article that is now proposed vnto vs haue caused to be imprinted eight yeares since with inscriptions pictures and elogies or testifications of his prayses because he seemeth vnto them to haue writen against the Pope For in his sermō made in the presence of King Charles the 7. in the name of the Vniuersitie of Paris Gers serm ad Regem Fran. nomine vniuersit Paris after he had made Sedition to speake which wills that vse without exception and indifferently be made of this rule of Seneca There is not a sacrifice more pleasing vnto God then the killing of Tyrants and that it is to be put in vre against all sortes of persons accused of Tyranny and vpon all manner of suspitions and of defamatory libels and Dissimulation that wills on the contrary that we neuer vse it but that we endure all Tyrants he bringeth in Discretiō that teacheth when it is to be vsed in these wordes Gers ibid. We conclude further that if the head or any other member of the Commō wealth should incurre such an incōuenience as he would swallow vp the deadly poyson of Tyrany euery member in his place should oppose himself by al his possibility by expediēt meanes such as should not make the matter worse seing it were to small it purpose when the head aketh that the hand should strike it but rather folly For nether is it necesary to cut it off by by to separate it from the rest of the body but we must cure it sweetly aswel by good words as otherwise lyke prudent wise Phisitians There could not be any thing more against reason of greater cruelty then Tyrany by a seditiō I cal sedition a rebellion of the people without cause and without reason which is oft tymes worse thē tyrany c. There needeth great singuler discretion prudence and temperance about the expulsion thrusting out of tyranny and therefore we must heare and giue credit to wise Philosophers Lawyers Deuines to men of good life of good and naturall prudence of great experiēce of whom it is said In old men is found experience For though a Prince and Lord sinne in many cases yet he must not for that be presently censured a Tyrant So he there And in his worke of ten Considerations against the flatterers of Kings where he recapitulateth a part of the discourse of his Sermon Gerson Considerat 7. contra adulat he sayth It is an errour to belieue that a terrene Prince is not bound in any thing during his raigne to his subiects For according to diuine right and naturall equity and the end of true gouernement as the subiects owe fidelity ayd succour and seruice to their Lord So the Lord oweth agayne faith and protection to his subiects And if the Prince manifestly pursue and persecute them and with obstinacy in iniury and by fact then this naturall rule It is lawfull to repell force by force and this saying of Seneca There cannot be a more acceptable Sacrifice immolated and made to God then by taking away of a Tyrant taketh place And notwithstanding this which is more strange those who haue caused this to be reprinted haue not vouchsafed to add either in the beginning of his workes or in the margent of these wordes any obseruation or note for the censuring of them or for aduertisement of the Reader to take heed But indeed how could they haue done it without condemning themselues Themselues I say who during the fury of these last troubles had been Ensigne-bearers or rather had caried the burning torches of this pernicious doctrine and had maynteyned and publisht it against King Henry the third by propositions disputed and printed For these be their words It is most certaine that by right both diuine and naturall the Estates be aboue Kings And againe It was lawfull for all the people of France most iustly to take armes against the Tyrant that is to say agaynst King Henry the third And a litle after They who consider matters attentiuely and diligently will iudge that the eternall enemies of the Religion and of the Country ought to be pursued not only by publique armes but also by the sword and plotts of particuler persons And that Iames Clement the Dominican was not put forwards by any other desire then by the loue of the Lawes of his Country and of the zeale of Ecclesiasticall discipline by which this restorer of our Liberty hath put vpon his owne head grace and vpon our neck a coller of gold and the heauenly collers of the Church Thus there This I say not to scandalize them for I conceale their names nor to reproach them with that that the bounty and clemency of the King hath buried vp and forgotten but to shew that they should be content to attend the rest of their dayes to the cancelling and washing away of their offence with their teares and not to meddle themselues with the making of lessons of the seruice of Kinges to them who alwaies well and faithfully serued them euen then when they persecuted them But these are violent spirits who being transported to one extreme and not being of power to hold the meane thought that the best meanes for the iustifying of themselues was to passe ouer to the other extreme and to put their hand to pen to write and fight against the Pope Wherin as they are found conforme or at least very like vnto the Churches enemies they haue beene so set on and plyed by those our enemyes and by some that dissembled with them as they haue beene induced thrust on vnder a pretence of the Kinges seruice to sow the seedes of schisme But Syrs the King desireth not to be serued after this sort his will is not that prouision be made for his safety by schisme and by the Churches diuision In the ruines whereof is comprehended the ruine and ouerthrow of his owne safetie spirituall and temporall he is a Catholike and the eldest child of the Catholike Church he is the first Catholike of all the Kinges and the first King of all the Catholikes He feareth not to fall into Heresy and standeth not in doubt of the Popes censures nor dreadeth the Churches threates against Heretikes He is the prime and principall protect our of the one and the other He is the heire both of the Crowne and of the name and of the faith of that glorious S. Lewis who was the Churches support and piller and the Popes defence retrait He is descēded from a mother no lesse Catholike pious and
forme of his appellation saith (b) Act. inter Bonif Phil. Pulch. Wee appeale to the said Generall Councell which we most hartily craue may be assembled and to the true and lawfull supreme Bishop that shal be and to others to which or to whome it shal be meete to appeale For the King and his maynteyned that Boniface was not the true Pope but was intruded and thrust into the Popedome by fraud simony (c) Ibidem Celestine his predecessour the true lawfull Pope still liuing And they further added that he was an (d) Ibidem Heretique and consequently not Pope for as much as said they (e) Ibid. in appell fact per reg regni col art 18. he had reuealed a confession and more then that he pretended that he beleeued not in the presence of Christes body in the Holy Sacrament And for this the Coūt of Artois caused his Buls to be burnt not as of the true Pope but as of a false one intruded heretical symoniacal and for this cause the King appealed not frō the Pope but from the person of Boniface to the Councel to the Sea Apostolique when it should haue a true Pope he sent two Knights to signify his appeale the one an Italian named Schiarra and the other a Frenchman named Nogaret who surprized by intelligence the Cittie of Anagnia wherin Pope Boniface was whence being deliuered vp and sent to Rome he dyed within awhile of sorrow In place of Boniface was chosen Benedictus to whome presētly after his creation the King gaue sufficiently to vnderstand that what he had done against Boniface was done but against his person and not against the Sea Apostolique For he wrote vnto him with this superscription (a) Act. inter Bonif Phil Pulch. fol. 94. To the most holy Father in our Lord Benedict by the diuine prouidence Supreme Bishop of the sacred holy Church Roman and vniuersall Philip by the grace of God King of France deuoutly kisseth his blessed seete And further with this cōgratulatiō (b) Ibid. f. 95. The Order of the Preachers do glorie to see sitting in the supreme throne of iustice such a father of the Vniuerse and of the faith such a successour of S. Peter and such a vicar of Christ And together with this concludeth (c) Ibid. f. 96. We recommend confidently the Realme in the gouernement whereof we doe by the grace of God sit and withall we recommend the Church of France to the fauours of your Holines And to Benedict who continued in the Sea but eight monethes succeeded Clement the fifth vnder whome the affaires of reconciliation were in such sort accorded and brought to an end as the temporall rightes of the Realme continued in their integrity And Clement himselfe came to Lions where the King to honour in him the spiritual power of Christ put himselfe on foot togeather with his brethren to receaue him Our Chronicles saith du Haillan (d) Du Haillan en la vie de Philip le Belle. doe affirme that the King of France and his two brethren were on foote by the Popes side holding his horses bridle To the second instance which is of the complaint of Lewis the 12. the defendors of the exception make the very same answere That the source and origen of that difference was not matter of religion but cases meerely temporall that is of the league and association that Pope Iulius and King Lewis the 12. at that time Duke of Millane had made and entred into against the Venetians For the Pope seeing how the King grew as great as he could desire in Italy fel of from that alliance with him and reconciled himselfe with the Venetians The King incensed with this separation and the Popes deportement and bad carriage towardes him thereon following caused a Councell to be held at Pisa and after againe at Millan by the Cardinals and other Prelates of his side where the Pope was declared susspēded frō the administration of the vniuersal Church The Pope sore moued at this attaint caused another to be held at Rome where to requite the King he declared him and his adherents deposed from the administration of their temporall Estates But the French both Ecclesiastike and Laike knowing that the first source beginning of that discord proceded from passion of matter of State not of religion interteyned vnion in such sort with the King as nothing could separate them from him For as touching the losse that happened vnto Iohn de Albret of the Kingdome of Nauarre the Continuer of Paulus Aemiltus though he was a sore enemy of the memory of Pope Iulius confesseth not that the sentence of the Pope was the true cause on the contrary he maynteineth that the cause for which Iohn de Albret lost the Kingdome of Nauarre was for breaking of from the alliance he had with Ferdinand King of Aragon which alliance Ferdinand affirmed was ratified vpon condition that if the Kinges of Nauarre did violate the same then the Kingdome of Nauarre should returne to the Spaniardes and he did put himselfe into that alliance of King Lewis the 12. vnder promise that he should procure the soueraignity of Berne to be restored vnto him This then the Continuer of Paulus Aemilius auerreth to be the true cause of the losse of the Kingdome of Nauarre And the other neither to haue beene the true cause nor true pretext but only a help of a pretext of which Ferdinand not hauing taken his aduantage did not yet leaue to pretend that the Kingdome of Nauarre appertained vnto him and so to take possession of it The King of Nauarre saith he (a) Ferrō Continuat Pauli Aemil. in Lud. 12. denied in the beginning that he could refuse to giue passage to the King of Aragon to passe into France saying first that he was hindred to declare himself enemy to Ferdinand by the alliance he had with him and Ferdinand himselfe vaunted that when the Kingdome of Nauarre was by the Spaniardes rendred vp into the handes of the race of Albret it was by caution written and prouided That in case their successors should breake their alliance the Kingdome should returne to the Spaniardes And a litle after (b) Ibid. Whereupon Ferdinand hauing vnderstood that the King of Nauarre was entred into amity with the King of France turned against him the forces which he had prepared for his iourney into France And this was the cause for which Ferdinand did thrust his neighbour next bordering King out of his Kingdome And more then this he added the pretext of another matter namely that the Pope had declared the King and his adherentes excomunicate their Kingdomes exposed To the Third Instance which is taken from the Arrest or Decree of Parlamēt which Mousieur Chancelour of the Hospitall caused to be made against Tanquerell there needeth no other answere then the Answers going before For the Arrest toucheth not in any sort
time the Christian people hath by the conuersion of Emperours and Empires and by the reduction of Kinges and Kingdomes beene gayned and consecrated to Iesus Christ his temporal raigne it cannot any more be vsurped nor possessed by way of right by the enemies of Christs name And hence it is that whatsoeuer Conquest the Turke maketh of the Christians and whatsoeuer possession of long continuance it be he cannot by any tract of tyme gaine the least inch of prescription ouer Christian people who were formerly subiect to Christes temporall tribunall before any such Conquest by him made And to say the contrary were not only to imbrace and hod one of Luthers errours who hath taught that the warre that the Christians made against the Turkes was vniust and vnlawful not only to cōdemne the authority of so many Councells which haue decreed the expeditions of the holy Land for the ayding of the Christians of the East for the deliuering of them from the yoke and seruitude of the Infidells which had beene a thing vniust For the Accessary followeth the Principall and if the Christians of the East had beene lawfull subiectes to the Mahometan Princes they neither could haue reuolted from them nor rebelled against them But also euen to anathematize and accurse the memory of so many Christian Worthies and to affirme that so many Knightes Princes and Kinges among them our most glorious S. Lewis who dying in that warre as Champious maynteyners of Christes cause pretended to gayne the Crowne of Martyrdome dyed in a cause vniust and worthie of damnation But those who defend the negatiue part reply and say that in tyme of the first Arian Emperours Constantius and Valens before whome the Empire had already acknowledged Christ Iesus the Church vsed not such manner of proceeding nor acquited the Christians of their obedience On the contrary that the Bishop Hosius writing vnto the Emperour Constantius Apud Athana in epist desolit vit agen saith vnto him in these wordes As he who would spoyle you in your Empire should resist Gods ordenance So I feare that your vsurping the authority of the Church will make you culpable of a great cryme To this then the defendants of the affirmatiue part answere two thinges The one that the Custome of obliging Princes to make an expresse oath vnto God and to their people to liue and to die in the Christian and Catholique Religion had not yet place in the tymes of the first Heretique or Apostata Emperours was not brought in but afterwards namely then when they would stay and hinder Religion from falling into the same perills wherin it was vnder them The other that the Church vsed not this proceeding not for default of Right but for want of force and strength not for want of power in it to ordeyne it but through want of ability in the Christian people to execute it For it is not inough to bind the Church to declare Princes Infidells to haue lost their rightes to exhort their subiects to depart from their obedience that she may lawfully do it but it is further necessary that she be able to do it prudently and profitably And therefore S. D. Tho. 2.2 2. q. 10. art 10. Thomas after he had said Infidells by the desert of their Infidelity be worthy to loose their power ouer the faithfull addeth But this the Church sometimes doth and sometimes doth it not And if we should conclude that because the ancient Church hath not declared the first Arian Emperours excluded from the right they had from God of commaunding Catholiks that therefore she had not the authority to do it we then should conclude the very same that because it excommunicated them not it had no authority to do it For we find not that any either Pope or Councell did euer namely and personally excommunicate the Arian Emperours Not for that the Church cānot excōmunicate them as wel as other Ariās whome it excōmunicated from tyme to tyme but for that it deemed it a matter of imprudency and pernicious to Religion to exasperate them not hauing forces to represse and curbe them And as touching Hosius they āswere that he saith not that the Church cānot absolue in the spiritual Court the Catholiks from the obedience of Cōstantius if she should haue thought it profitable possible and necessary for them to attempt the deliuery of themselues from his tyranny Neither saith he that if the Emperour Constance being a Catholique Prince had not beene dead and that he had declared and proclaymed warre against his brother Constantius as he threatned he would do if he ceased not to persecute the Catholikes the Catholikes of the East would not haue ioyned taken part with him and would not haue belieued that the Church could haue dispensed with them about their oath of fidelity they had made to Constantius Theod. hist Eccles lib. 2. cap. 9. alibi But they say that Hosius speaketh of them who of their priuate authority and of their owne ambition raised themselues against Constantius to depriue him of the Empire and to become Tyrantes themselues Yet Lucifer Calaritanus maketh no difficulty Lucif Cola. rit lib. de non parcend in Deum delinq to call Constantius himselfe A Tyrant and the Antiochus of his age and protesteth that he is not bound towardes him to obserue the modesty of wordes which the Apostle commaundeth to be obserued to Princes and Magistrates for as much as the Apostle speaketh of Princes who haue not yet belieued in Christ and not of such Princes as haue reuolted from Christ I adde saith he that the Apostle speaketh of Princes and Magistrates which haue not yet belieued in the only Sonne of God whome we should by our humility and meeknes and long patience in aduersity and most great obedience in thinges reasonable prouoke to belieue in him But those who hold the negatiue part Socrat. hist Eccl. lib. 3. cap. 19. reply that the Christians might well haue deposed the Emperour Iulian the Apostata For when the Emperour Iouian who was elected after his death Theod. lib. 4. cap. 1. answered the soldiers of the Army Sozom. lib. 6. cap. 1. that he would not haue a commaund ouer men who were not Christians they replyed that they were Christians And to this againe they who maynteyne the affirmatiue part want not their answere For on the contrary they auerre that the Church could not do it prudently nor profitably For besides that the Christians were so deuided as the faction of the Arians alone ioyned with the Heathens without speaking of other Heretikes or of the cold Catholikes who as S. Gregory Nazianzene saith Greg. Naz. in Iul. orat serued the tyme and had not as he further addeth other law then the Emperours will held their foote vpon the Catholike Churches throate And besides when Iulian was Emperour he was so far from persecuting the Catholikes at the first as that in
Apostacy cannot be secured To this obiection the answere is short and easy For the Church intermedleth not her selfe with the absolution of the subiects but in the Ecclsiasticall Court and therin besides this payne and that of excommunication it imposeth not any other By meanes wherof it is so far from consenting that any attempt be made vpon the life of them whom it hath excommunicated as it abhorreth all fortes of killinges and murtheringes and especially such as be sudaine and vnexpected in regard of the losse of both body and soule which cōmonly go therin accompanied togeather And if they say that the Church ordayneth it not but that it is the cause that it is done for as much as the Common wealth conforming it selfe to the Churches iudgment and making the same decision in the tribunall politique if the Prince keepe on his former course declareth him a Tyrant and an enemy of the state and consequently subiecteth him to the power of the Lawes politique which permit the conspiring against Tyrantes for the making of them away and for killing of them we bring first this exception that there is great difference betweene Tyrantes of vsurpation whome the Lawes permit to extirminate by all manner of wayes and Tyrantes of administration and gouernement who are lawfully called to their Principality but gouerne it ill and we add that the Hereticall Princes who persecute the faith and their Catholike subiects be of the number of Tyrantes of administration and not of the number of Tyrants of vsurpation against whome alone it is permitted to conspire by clandestine and secret practises And if they further vrge and say that the politique Lawes permit conspiracies against the one and the other we answere that they are politique prophane and heathenish Laws as those of the ancient Romans or of the Grecians in former tymes and not Christian politique Lawes For the Christian politique Laws consider not only in their Princes the respect due vnto them for the good of temporall pollicy and the regard of the Maiesty of the Estate which they represent but they further consider in them the Image and vnction of God who hath called them to that Dignity in so much as in them who haue once had the lawfull vocation of Royalty what Tyrany soeuer they exercise the Christian politique Laws neuer passe so farre as to permit the vse of proscription against their persons or that any do attempt by clandestine or secret coniuration or conspiracy against their persons or liues but they carry the same respect to them that did Dauid to Saul notwithstanding he knew he were reiected 1. Reg. 26. cast of and reproued of God when he said Who shall extend his hand vpon the anoynted of our Lord and shal be innocent In so much as if the Christians be constrayned to defend their religion and their life against Hereticall and Apostata Princes from whose allegiance they were absolued the Christian politique Laws permit not more then what is permitted by military Lawes and the right of nations that is to say open warre and not clandestine and secret 〈…〉 and conspiracies For there alwaies remayneth in them a certain habitude to the dignity Royall as it were a marke of a politique character that discerneth them from simple particulers and when the obstacle and impediment is taken away that is when they come to amend themselues and to giue satisfactiō it restoreth them to the lawfull vse and exercise of their regality And therefore we see that in so many controuersies that the Popes haue had with tēporall Princes neuer any Pope went so far as to coūsell or to assent to the murthering of Princes Contrariwise if any calumniators laboured to impute it vnto them they haue euer iustified themselues euen with the horrour and abhomination of such actes remembring themselues of these wordes of S. Gregory when the Lombards made war vpon him If I would haue medled with the death of men Greg. lib. 7. epist 1. the Nation of the Lombards should at this day haue had neither King non gouernors But because I stand in feare of God I will not haue to moddle or deale with the death of any person And touching the other point of the last Inconuenience which is that this medly maketh the remedies that they would bring to the daunger of the Kinges to be not only vnprofitable but also pernicious and domageable there needeth not much eloquence to perswade it For if those who made the attempts vpon the liues of our Kinges were moued to those horrible parricides by a false imagination which they conceaued to wit that our Kings did something in preiudice of religion how much more would they haue thought they had a greater better pretext if they had beleeued that our Kings had abused their authority by the bringing in of schisme and the ouerthrowing of Religion and that they had seene themselues in schisme separated from the communion of the Sea Apostolique and cut off from the other partes of the Church And more then this who vnderstandeth not that there cannot happen any thing of more and greater daunger for the life and authority of Kinges then intestine and ciuill wars which schismes do ordinarily draw after them Moreouer who knoweth not that the cōtempt and indifferencie of Religion which must needes follow vpon schismes engendreth and occasioneth Impiety and Atheisme and taketh quite away all the respect that men are wont to carry to Kinges for the loue of God and for the reuerence of Religion which is the strongest corps or Court of Guard and the surest rampaire for the defence and security of their persons For when Religion is had in contempt men are not any longer withholden from attempting vpon the persons of Kinges then by force and by feare of the temporall paynes and therfore when they thinke they may do it without beeing punished or that they contemne and make no reckoning of the temporall paynes they haue no more bridle to conteyne them or to hold them in Finally who seeth not that there can be nothing worse for the safety of the persons and of the estate of Kinges then to stir vp and drawe vpon them by an ouerture of a new schisme and diuision from the Church Psal 75. the wrath of him who taketh away the spirits of Princes from out of the earth And heere Gentlemen I will not with you vse more reasons and argumentes but wil passe ouer to exhortations and intreaties and wil coniure you to remember that you are French men and that you are also Christians and Catholikes and that in treating touching the securing of Kinges you must not only cast your eies vpon the earth but also lift them vp to Heauen and you must not remedy their temporall safetie in causing them to forgo and loose the euerlasting nor prouide for your bodily part which is France by destroying and ruyning the spirituall parte which is the Church The Pope tolerateth and