Subjects and Primitive Example had been so positively describ'd and secur'd by that admirable Institution of Christianity that all who profess themselves of that Belief Disciples of that Religion and who pretend so much to extraordinary Illumination from the fatal examples of the Event of all Rebellions since the very first defection of Lucifer to this period of ours should be sufficiently convinc'd of their duty to Kings as God's Vice-gerents on Earth and of that irrefragable Truth That those who resist shall receive to themselves Damnation But since a sort of Monsters there are who neither believe Moses nor the Prophets no nor God himself who rose from the dead to assert and plant the Doctrine of Obedience to the Civil Magistrate by the Preaching of his holy Apostles and their Successors till of late what moral Confidence can a Prince repose in the Pretences of any who are thus sworn and addicted to their Tenents I speak here as to the Jesuites in particular and to those who of late lay at his Majestie 's feet out of that Religiouâ— pretence the Tenderness of Conscience without ever shewing either Religion or Conscience in any their Actions or Writings hitherto relating purely to his Majestie 's Interest the Church of England or her Friends whiles the years of her most barbarous Persecution continu'd but which if they had done I would here turn Apologist in their Cause and plead it with affection But say those of the Church of Rome what is the Disloyalty you lay to our charge Name us the Persons and produce the Instances The Answer is short That whiles the Doctrine of Deposing Kings whatever is pretended remembring that of Charles the Vth Vocem esse Jacobi manus autem Esau abetted by so many late Decrees of Popes remains uncondemn'd there is reason sufficient for Princes to be jealous of favouring a Party who suck in those Principles with their Milk as many of them at least as are Alumni of the Jesuites and who by the Papists own acknowledgment are not worthy to be consider'd no not as to Exemption from the most rigorous of our Laws against them 'T is the same Author who frankly confesseth that F. Parsons did most deservedly draw it upon that whole Order by his continual and intolerable Practices against the Crown'd heads of this Nation from whence he inferrs that neither can his Majestie be safe for reasons unanswerable to any that shall take the pains but to survey their Tenents and the voluntary Obligation into which they have precipitated themselves Slaves to the Pope as they are and to that Theological Bawd the Doctrine of Probability But would they now cut off this Objection at once and give just satisfaction to the Charge as most assured I am divers of his Majestie 's loyal Subjects of their persuasion in many other things earnestly contend for though with the sacrifice of that whole pragmatical Order which thus has set the World in Combustion let them and the intire Party subscribe to all Doctrines which deny the Pope's authority of Deposing Kings and releasing Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and let the Pope himself approve it and cause an Index expurgatorius to be made of all those Authors we have enumerated and the Books that more lately maintain and favour it since even all this were little enough to secure his Majestie from too just apprehension whiles that sacrilegious Thesis asserting the Pope's Dominion over Temporals and Infallibility even extra Generale Concilium is yet publickly cherish'd which enables him to rescind all this in a moment and Absolve to morrow what he Obliges to day and make that to pass for the undoubted Word of God which is in truth the very Doctrine of Devils For if as a most pious and learned Prelate of our Church has explain'd it truly and ex animo they are otherwise affected they should doe well to unsay what hath been said and declare themselves by publick Authority against such Doctrines and say whether or no their Determinations shall be de Fide If they be then all those famous Catholick Doctors Tho. Aquinas Bellarmine Creswel Mariana Emanuel SÃ c. are Hereticks and their Canons teach Heresie and many of their Popes to be condemned as Heretical for practising and teaching Deposition of Princes by an Authority usurped against and in prejudice of the Christian Faith But if their Answers be not de Fide then they had as good say nothing for the danger is not at all decreased because if there be Doctors on both sides by their own assertion they may without sin follow either but yet more safely if they follow the most receiv'd and the most authoriz'd And whither this Rule will lead them I will be judged by any man that hath consider'd the Premisses Briefly either this thing must remain in the same state it is and our Princes be still expos'd to so extreme hazards or else let his Holiness seat himself in his Chair condemn these Doctrines vow against their future Practice limit his Ordo ad spiritualia contain himself within the limits of Causes directly and merely Ecclesiastical disclaim all power so much as indirect over Princes Temporals and all this with an intent to oblige all Christendom Which when I see done I shall be most ready to believe that nothing in Popery doth either directly or by necessary consequence destroy Loyalty to our lawfull Prince but not till then having so much evidence to the contrary Thus far this reverend Prelate And that this is likewise the sense and as I affirmed earnest desire of all the honest men of the Romish Church is most convincingly as well as boldly and loyally asserted by that learned Remonstrant R. Carron whose Vindication of what I here produce against the Jesuites and other Popish Errors that zizania as he truly styles it of Infallibility c. the subject of the ensuing Treatise I find publish'd since this Preface was finish'd and I heartily wish it may produce an Effect sutable to the attempt of that candid and ingenuous Person that so though we have many other failings to charge them withall they may yet lessen by degrees and as God shall please to enlighten them till we come to a perfect and consummate Reconciliation In the mean time with what forehead my Lord can this Faction cry out against us as cruel or at our Sanctions as unjust whilst his Sacred Majestie has a faculty commensurate to his Piety and a Prerogative which can gratifie his merciful nature without reversing what his Predecessors have enacted who reign'd in such prosperity not so much because they executed the Penalties as for that they had the power to doe it and did use it prudently and I confess I was infinitely pleas'd to find it avow'd by a Romanist that they were themselves the occasion of those Sanguinary laws as they would brand them and to justifie them too as the forecited Author
Of You Sir our most Noble Lord by the Grace of God King of France the people of Your Kingdom supplicate and desire because it behoves them so to doe that You preserve the Sovereign Freedom of your Kingdom which is that You own and acknowledge no Sovereign on the Earth over Your Temporals but God alone and that You give all the World to understand that Pope Boniface does manifestly erre and commit a most notorious mortal sin in sending You word by his Letters and Bulls that himself was Sovereign of Your Temporals c. and those who should believe the contrary he esteem'd as Hereticks Also that You cause to be declared that we are bound to hold the Pope himself an Heretick and not You good King and all the liege people of Your Kingdom who have ever believed and do believe the contrary The same Protestation is to be seen in several Acts inserted in that Collection which Mons. du Puy has made of the difference between King Philip the Fair and Pope Boniface where you 'l see how Pope Boniface's Bulls were then explain'd and what was the opinion of France touching Infallibility 'T is in vain to strive to make any other replies to these kind of Popes Decrees then such as the French of that Age did before us For as there 's nothing to which the Court of Rome aspires with greater passion then to this Temporal Empire so neither is there any thing which the Popes have establish'd with so much industry Cardinal Bellarmine summs up no less then 18 since Gregory the VIIth to our times who manifestly attributed to themselves this right as they call'd it of deposing Kings and chastising them temporally even to the privation of their States viz. Victor the III d Urban the II d Paschal the II d Gelasius the II d Calixtus the II d Alexander the III d Innocentius the III d Honorius the III d Gregory the IXth Innocent the IVth Boniface the VIIIth Clement the VIth Paul the II d Iulius the II d Paeul the III d Pius the Vth Gregory the XIIIth and Sixtus the Vth He counts to 16 or 17 Kings and Emperours against whom Popes have pretended this right of Sovereignty as a debt due to them amongst which there are 5 French Kings Philip the I st Philip the Fair Lewis the XIIth Henry the III d and Henry the IVth Baronius mentions also the Excommunication of a world of Germans who are not yet well agreed concerning the Pope's Power by which it appears that they alwaies pretended to make it an Heresie when at any time they were the strongest party Nor is there any thing more frequent in these Bulls then their menacing Kings and Princes to deprive them of their States in case of Disobedience Which universally betraies that Passion which the Court of Rome has to infuse this belief into the minds of the People But if one could forget those other enterprises of Rome against our Kings which are founded upon this pretented Superiority as this Superiority is upon Infallibility since France has so universally hindred their effects yet we cannot but remember that which made us lose Navarre because the wound is yet bleeding Ferdinand had no other pretext to swallow it up from Iohn d' Albret Great-Grandfather to Henry the Great besides a Bull which he obtain'd of Iulius the II d against the King and Queen of Navarre importing Privation of their Kingdom for having assisted Lewis the XIIth whom it call'd Schismatick and as having denied passage to the Army which Ferdinand King of Arragon would have sent into France to assist the King of England in the conquest of Guienne I know very well that Cardinal du Perron to render this Doctrine of the Power of Popes over the Temporals of Kings less odious to the French tells us that the real cause of the loss of the Kingdom of Navarre was the breach of the Alliance which the King of Navarre had with Ferdinand King of Arragon which Ferdinand pretended to have been establish'd on condition that if the Kings of Navarre should violate it the Kingdom of Navarre should again revert to the Spaniards who had render'd it by deed in Writing to the race of Albret and that Pope Iulius's Excommunication was neither the true Cause nor real Pretence but a certain tail of a Pretence which though Ferdinand had made no use of he had notwithstanding pretended that the Kingdom of Navarre appertain'd to him and consequently possess'd it But I know as well too that there is nothing worse founded then this answer as Mons. du Puy has made appear by most invincible proofs in his Treatise of the Right of the King to the Kingdom of Navarre For he does there prove by the Spanish Historians themselves that Ferdinand during the Usurpation and whiles he liv'd had onely the Title by the Pope's Excommunication to justifie his Arms. He shews how Ferdinand having swallow'd up this Kingdom 1512 and being press'd by the King of Navarre 1513 to doe him reason defended his possession by no other right but by that of the Excommunication and that in the two most authentick Acts on this subject one whereof is the Will and Testament of Ferdinand by which he bequeaths the Kingdom of Navarre to his Daughter Iane Queen of Castile and the other of the Union of that Kingdom to that of Castile it is expresly signified that Iohn d' Albret and Catharine his Wife had been depriv'd of it by the Pope for having adher'd to the Schism of the French Kings against Pope Iulius the II d and that the Pope had given him this Kingdom to dispose of as he pleas'd I omit the other proofs Which sufficiently shews that the Pope's Bull was no tail of Pretext but indeed the onely and sole Pretence of that unjust Usurpation which continues to this very day In the second place there is nothing more absurd then to say that the Spaniards had never rendred the Kingdom of Navarre to the race of Albret but with this written Caution That if their Successors should violate the Alliance the Kingdom should revert to the Spaniards For Iean d' Albret on whom was the Usurpation was the first of Albret's race who possess'd the Kingdom How then could it be said that the Spaniards had render'd it to Albret's race who before never enjoy'd it And supposing we did take the word render'd for given it is no less false that the Spaniards were they of Arragon or Castile gave this Kingdom to the race of Albret who in no sort held it of the Spaniards but by the Marriage of Catharine who succeeded King Francis Phoebus his Brother and Francis Phoebus to Elianor his Grandmother wife of Gastion de Foix and sole superviving Daughter of Blanch Queen of Navarre which Lady had espous'd Iohn King of Arragon the Father of Ferdinand who being born of another Venter had nothing to doe with Navarre So as this pretended Caution can be no other then a
against the Lord and against his Anointed That is to say The Pope is Iesus Christ and all Christian Kings who maintain their Sovereignty against the Usurpations of Rome are the Herods and the Pontius Pilates This publick decry yet in the Books of these Writers is nothing so considerable as the particular and clandestine traverses that the Court of Rome excites upon all occasions whatsoever against those whom she believes not favourable to her Interests By that it is she stops the mouths and stays the Pens of almost all Learned persons who cannot really possess themselves of that Title that they are not inwardly persuaded of the Hypocrisies of these ambitious pretensions but they chuse rather to be silent then to speak of it Because there are but a very few persons so in love with Truth as in resolving to maintain it will endure to be tormented and barretted all their life-time and to be torn in pieces when they are dead They see that Kings and their great Ministers take not for the most part that care to protect those who maintain and defend their Right by some testimony of their acknowledging it as the Court of Rome does to persecute them or at least to deny them all kind of favour They must be touch'd with an extraordinary Zeal and very disinteress'd to surmount all these considerations and to sacrifice themselves for the Interest of their Prince and Countrey without any hope of advantage or to speak more properly with reason to apprehend all sort of disadvantage by it All those principally who are ty'd to any Community are thereby oblig'd to a silence which they believe to be just as holding themselves responsable for the conservation of their Body And 't is true these vast Bodies have stricter bonds which tie them to Rome and are more expos'd to Persecution because they have more places which expose them to seisure to which one may adde that almost all the Religious and Communities have their Generals resident at Rome who will never permit that the Divines of their Orders should undertake to teach things which would not be well receiv'd there and from which there may lie a grudge against the whole Order They are therefore Private persons onely who are fit upon these encounters to engage for the Truth but then it is necessary that they be furnished with Light to know it with Zeal to love it with Steadiness not to fear the ills it may produce and with Sincerity and Disinterest that so they may have no occasion to be in danger of being thwarted And when there were onely this last how rare a thing it is to be found Well therefore has Iohn Major that renowned Doctor of Paris long since observ'd That it was not to be wonder'd at if they were fewer who declared for a Council then for the Pope since Councils met but seldom and gave no Benefices whereas the Pope does and thence 't is saies he men flatter him with an omnipotent power as well in Spiritual things as temporal Hinc homines ei blandiuntur dicentes quòd solvere potest omnia quadrare rotundata rotundare quadrata tam in Spiritualibus quà m in temporalibus Hence it proceeds that the Liberties of the Gallican Church and the ancient Maxims of the Sorbon are now-a-daies hardly vindicated but by secular persons such as We that have less relation to the Court of Rome then Ecclesiasticks have whereof the wisest of them are rather satisfied to approve them in their heart without defending them in their Books such power have fear and interest upon the spirit of those who should be more free from them by the Sanctity of their Profession But if there be persons disinterested so as not to be touch'd by these temporal considerations it often falls out that having little judgment and less science their Piety it self engages them into these new Opinions because they are publish'd in the World under this artificial veil That 't is forsooth to violate and wound Religion to contest the Pope's Infallibility and temporal Sovereignty over Kings Those in the mean time who have no relation to it but this pretext without any mixture of humane interest may easily be disabus'd if once they but consider that the most pious of all our ancient Doctors as the illustrious Gerson wihtout mentioning Dionysius the Carthusian and the blessed Cardinal d' Arles have oppos'd with greater vigour those ambitious pretences of the Court of Rome and that they have judg'd that on the contrary 't is the sincere Zeal for the Catholick Religion which ought to oblige all judicious Divines courageously to resist this temporal Superiority over Kings and Infallibility as two inseperable Maxims one from the other either of them capable to raise very great mischiefs to the Church For in effect what is there more opposite to the real benefit of the Catholick Religion then this Doctrine of the Pope's Superiority over Kings in Temporals which is a necessary consequence of Infallibility and of the power which they give him to depose them Is not this to render Religion abhorr'd and suspected of all Princes as the Sorbon has judiciously remark'd in the Censure of Santarel to give them cause to believe that 't is impossible they should have Subjects at the same time good Catholicks and faithful to their King What Infidel Prince indeed would permit men to preach Faith in the Countries under his obedience if he knew that all those who embrace it think themselves by that dispens'd with for obedience to him farther then another Sovereign pleases who can at any time cause them to take up arms against their lawful King Were this for example a proper expedient to incline the Americans to receive our Faith to say to them as some Spaniards did that the Pope had bestow'd their Country on the King of Castile And however Barbarians as they were had they not reason to reply as they did That they knew no such thing as a Pope but that if there were he must needs be a wicked man to give away that which was none of his own Were not this also to dispose Heretical Princes not to suffer Catholicks in their States when they shall behold them but as so many subjects to another Prince who has power to command them to depose him in the Country where they live And do not we know that 't is this has so imbitter'd the King of England against the Papists and the almost sole cause of the disturbance which they suffered in Iames's time as being to this day the greatest obstacle to the progress of Religion in that Kingdom In fine what Catholick Prince would be willing that his Dominion which he takes so much pains to preserve both in Peace and War should continually depend upon the judgment of one sole Person who may be possess'd perhaps by his Enemies or transported by his proper passions For 't is a weak confidence to resolve they will give the Pope no occasion
and solid grandeur of the holy See it self In this sense it is we shall speak of the Court of Rome in the present Treatise as so many great persons and Saints have already done by opposing themselves to their unjust pretensions without at all thinking they did thereby in the least violate the respect which they ow'd the Pope as Head of the Church to which they on the contrary believ'd these Opinions must needs be most disadvantageous And we have so much the more liberty to doe it now since the moderation of the present Incumbent speaks him very far from these ambitious thoughts Now amongst all these illegitimate Usurpations of the Court of Rome thus considered there has none of them proved more funest to Christian Princes the Church and even to Popes themselves then that by which some of them have been transported to domineer over Kings to make themselves their Superiours and Judges in the administration of their Kingdoms and by pretending of a right when they fansied it for the cause of Religion to depose them of their Empires and give their Estates to others or to abandon them to the first Usurper who had power to make himself Master It 's impossible to describe those horrid Confusions which this pretence of theirs hath brought forth in Italy and in Germany for so many Ages together the Warrs it has kindled the Bloud it has made to be spilt the Provinces it has rendred desolate the Cities it has ruin'd the Scandals and Disorders which it has filled the Church with But one of its worst effects is that it has render'd the holy See which should as well be the centre of the love of Catholicks as of the Unity of the Church odious both to Kings and People by making them to look upon the Vicar of Iesus Christ not as a common Father full of tenderness for all his Children but as a Temporal Prince that would trample all other Princes under his feet and render himself absolute Master of all the Kingdomes of the Earth This is one of the main causes which has made so many people revolt against the Church of Rome and the most usual pretence which they have taken to hinder many Christians from paying that observance to Popes which they are oblig'd to render them by confounding it with these odious excuses For having once anticipated the People with this erroneous opinion That one could not acknowledge in the Pope that real Authority which Iesus Christ has given him without owning that also which these Sycophants attribute to him over Temporals and States they have by an hateful Schism kept them from acknowledging the Pope as Head of the Church for fear lest they should be bound likewise to own him for their King and Master It concerns the Church therefore to take away this color from Schism which is the greatest of all mischiefs by separating the Spiritual power of the Sovereign Bishop as it has been instituted by Iesus Christ and acknowledg'd by all Catholicks from this false and exorbitant power which Ambition and Flattery would adde to it repugnant to the spirit of Iesus Christ and the Doctrine of the Apostles And therefore we must needs confess that the Zeal of the Parliaments of France for the maintenance of the Sovereignty of Kings against the enterprises of those who subverting the Order of God would have it to depend upon this Spiritual Jurisdiction is no less advantageous to the Church then to the State and that on the other part there is nothing more prejudicial to them both then that low and fleshly prudence of these Theologues who think to exalt the divine Grandeur of the prime Minister of the new Law which wholly consists in the love to eternal good things and in the despising of the things of this World by secular and temporal advantages which God did never annex to him or that seek to enlarge their fortunes by this pretended Zeal for the enlargement of the Authority of the Pope 'T is known to the whole World that the Iesuites have within these hundred years been the chief defenders of these ambitious pretences and that their Society has employ'd the most renown'd of its Writers to disseminate this Doctrine every-where It is this which has been taught by Iohn Mariana Gregorie de Valentia Alphonsus Salmeron Ludovicus Richome Louys Molina Robert Bellarmine Iohannes Osorius Carolus Scribanius Andrew Eudemon Iohannes Azor Robert Parsons Francis Suarez Gabriel Vasquez Leonardus Lessius Iacobus Gretserus Martinus Becanus Antonius Santarellus Vincentius Filiutius Stephen Bauny c. On the contrary it is well known what extraordinary care the Parliaments of Paris and the Universities of France have taken to repress the Authors of these pernicious Opinions the one by their Arrests and the other by their Censures It 's above an hundred years since that the Parliament of Paris gave a famous Arrest upon this Subject the 4 of December 1561. against a certain Bachelour in Divinity who had put it into his Thesis That it was in the Power of the Pope to excommunicate Kings to give away their Kingdoms and to absolve their Subjects of their Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity This Proposition was declar'd seditious the Bachelour being not to be found it was order'd that the Bedel of the Sorbon vested in a red Hood should disavow it before a President of the Court and the chief of the Faculty of Divinity and that during four years space there should no publick Disputation be permitted in the College where it was defended This whole affair is twice told us in the Bibliothec du Droit under the words Interdictions p. 4478. and Effigies p. 1110. And Bouchel who is the Author of this Bibliotheca in reciting of this History adds this Remark The plain truth is that within these fifty years past there is come a certain new Sect to be planted amongst us called by the name of Jesuites who maintain Propositions quite contrary to ours to the very ruine of the State The same Parliament testifies its zeal for the Interests of the King and Crown upon several other occasions as when it condemn'd to the fire the 8 of Iune 1610. the Book of the Iesuite Mariana intituled De Rege Regis institutione and that after the same manner Iū 26. 1614. it treated that of Suarez intitul'd Defensio Fidei Catholicae But there was never any thing more celebrious upon this subject then that which pass'd 1626. in the censure of Santarel This Iesuite had written a Book of Heresie Schism Apostasie c. printed at Rome 1625. permissu superiorum in which following the common sentiments of his Society he taught That the Pope might punish Kings and Princes with temporal pains depose and deprive them of their Kingdoms and States for the crime of Heresie and for other causes as when they were culpable of any fault if he find
mere impertinent Fable without any foundation since the Spaniards having neither render'd nor given the Kingdom of Navarre to the race of Albret they could never appose any caution or condition either in rendring or bestowing it Thirdly The Spaniards themselves could never yet produce any Treaty of Alliance between the Kings of Arragon and those of Navarre where this Condition was appos'd though besides all this it be beyond the power of Kings to annex any such Condition since they are not so Masters of their Kingdoms as to transfer them to any others then those who are their legitimate Successors Fourthly In fine 't is plainly false that ever Iohn d' Albret broke any Alliance with Ferdinand but on the contrary Ferdinand it was who invaded Navarre in the month of Iuly Anno 1512 and who made himself master of Pampelona the capital City of that State before there were any French in Navarre which compell'd Iohn d' Albret to throw himself into the arms of Lewis the XIIth with whom he was before but in ill intelligence to endeavour to maintain himself against this unjust Usurper who four months before this Treaty of Iohn d' Albret with Lewis had obtain'd a Bull of Excommunication of the Pope against the King of Navarre as falsly representing that being joyn'd with the King of France excommunicated by the holy See he deny'd the English free passage to enter into Guienne It is therefore evident that it is onely this pretended Power which the Flatterers of the Pope have of late Ages attributed to him to dispossess Kings and make Donations of their Kingdoms to him that can obtain them which has cost our Kings the Kingdom of Navarre since Ferdinand had but this pretence onely to invade it and all that the Spaniards would add to it since was never so much as in their heads because it was out of all probability And it is still true that this right is annex'd by all those who defend it to this Infallibility We see likewise that ever since this Popes have alwaies favour'd the Usurpation of Navarre as a mark of the Power which they pretend to have for the deposing of Kings This is evident by their shunning as much as possible the qualifying our King with the Title of the King of Navarre as in the Bulls of Barberin's Legation 1625 wherein the King being but simply styl'd King of France it was ordain'd by Parliament that it should be declar'd by the Pope that the quality of the King of Navarre had been omitted by inadvertency in the said Bulls and that till that were rectified the Arrest of Verification should not be delivered and the Bulls continue without execution in France But what they could not then obtain by the wise resistence of the Parliament they have now found an Expedient to obtain by the credit which the Iesuites have at Court for finding they had there wrought so great an aversion against the Iansenists that there was nothing more desir'd then their condemnation they believ'd they could make it be purchased with the loss of the Quality of King of Navarre nor were they at all mistaken in their expectation For Pope Innocent the Xth address'd his Bull to the King by a Breve wherein he onely styles him King of France and all who lov'd the State saw with grief that they receiv'd this Breve so injurious to the King with open arms You see how well the Roman Court knows how to profit on occasions and take her advantage she never lets any escape which she does not manage with a singular address But this Breve will one day prove one of its most memorable examples since under colour of ruining the poor Iansenists she has open'd a gap to establish two of the most considerable points of her Grandeur and which have indeed been the most contested in France The one is That the Pope alone may decide Poins of Faith with an infallible Authority the other That he may give Kingdoms away at pleasure as Iulius the II d gave that of Navarre to the Spaniards By all these proofs 't is evident that the Superiority of Popes above Kings in Temporals is an inseparable Position of Infallibility as to the pretence of all those Theologues who are married to the Interest of the Court of Rome especially the Iesuites 'T is also clear that the subtilty of those who have made as if they would separate them hath so little basis that it were an unworthy and dangerous prevarication in those who are oblig'd to maintain the Supreme Authority of their Prince but to reduce the Right of Kings which is certain and indubitable to so shallow and trifling a defence So as the onely means of hindring the establishment of this pernicious Consequence is to stop that so dangerous a Principle and above all not to permit the Iesuites the impudence of making it an Article of Faith and the carrying it even beyond all sorts of bounds and to an Infallibility in Questions de facto which is in summe to have given the fatal blow to the ruine of the Royal Throne This is easie to prove For Popes being once establish'd superiour to Temporal Princes in Temporals as we have shew'd they cannot fail of obtaining if once we allow them infallible in Questions de jure what defence remains there to a Prince against the stratagems of this Power but the pretence of its being possibly miss-inform'd and that it was mistaken in the grounds on which it proceeded to despoil him of his State But what means is there of opposing that pretence against a person who shall be in possession of the same Infallibility with Iesus Christ in matter of Fact What Christian is there who should dare oppose to Iesus Christ that he is mistaken and what were there more easie for a Pope then to ruine this defence since for that he had onely to declare by a Bull that he has well examin'd the Prince's Cause and that he deserves to be Excommunicated and Depos'd to oblige all the World to believe that he did merit it indeed Nor let any pretend that 't is not in these kinds of Facts that Popes are infallible For both the Principles and Reasons of the Iesuites tend to it And the benefit of the Church which is the sole foundation of this Imagination will rather incline to believe that God is bound to make the Popes as infallible in affairs so important as the subversion of Kingdoms the consequences whereof are so terrible to Religion it self as in the judgments which they make whether there are or are not Errours in a particular Book which is of it self but of very little consequence Now if the Iesuites without any reason and from an humane apprehension and fear should except these Facts they would not in the least diminish of the pernicious subjects of their Doctrine because the spirits of those who are once imbu'd with their Opinions would easily break through these weak restraints in