Council over the Pope What in signifies in M. Schelstrates Manuscript That the Pope Elected cannot be bound The Judgment of the Vniversity of Paris and of the Gallican Church concerning the superiority of a Council over the Pope p. 317 CHAP. XXVI The state of the Question touching the Power that some Doctors have attributed to Popes over the Temporal THE distinction of the direct and indirect Power p. 341 CHAP. XXVII What Jesus Christ and his Apostles have taught us as to that A False distinction of Buchanans refuted It was upon an obligation of Conscience and not through weakness that Christians obeyed infidel Emperors and Persecutors The Allegiance that Subjects owe to their Sovereigns is of Divine Right with which Popes cannot dispence All the passages cited for the contrary opinion are understood contrary to the interpretation of the Fathers of the Church which is forbidden by the Council of Trent p. 345 CHAP. XXVIII What hath been the Judgment of the Ancient Fathers of the Church as to that Point THE distribution that God hath made of the Spiritual for the Church and her Pastors and of the Temporal for Kings An Exhortation of the passage Here are two Swords Dominion forbidden to the Popes and how p. 359 CHAP. XXIX The Judgment of Ancient Popes touching the Power over Temporals that some Doctors of late times attribute to the Pope THE Testimony of Gelasius Of Gregory II. That Pope offered not to depose Leo Isauricus nor to make Rome revolt against him Testimonies of Pelagius I. Stephen II. St. Gregory the Great and of Martin I. supposititious Bulls of St. Gregory Pope Gregory VII is the first that offered to depose Emperors Pope Zachary deposed not Childerick and Leo III. transferred not the Empire to Charlemagne p. 370 CHAP. XXX What hath always been the Opinion of the Gallican Church and of all France as to that The Conclusion of this Point and of the whole Treatise HOW the Bishops of France opposed the attempts of Gregory IV. against Louis the Debonnaire They have always done the like upon all occasions What the Chamber of the Clergy declared concerning the absolute independence of our Kings in the Estates Assembled in 1914. Their Declaration in the year 1682. in relation to the same Subject The sentences of Parliament and the Edicts of Kings upon the same occasion Conclusion of this Treatise p. 387 AN Historical Treatise Concerning the FOUNDATION AND PREROGATIVES OF THE CHURCH of ROME And of her BISHOPS CHAP. I. The Design and Draught of this Work and the Principle on which it moves TO maintain a State in peace and tranquillity which makes Subjects happy according to the scope that true Policie proposes to it self The first thing that is to be done is to beat off the enemy that hath taken up Arms for the ruine of it and then to take care that the quarrels and troublesome contests which sometimes arise amongst the chief members of the State proceed not so far as to occasion a Civil War All Christians agree that the true Church of Jesus Christ is that Spiritual Kingdom which he came to establish in this world and which nevertheless as he himself hath said is not of this world because the whole end of it is to procure us eternal happiness a thing no ways to be attained to upon Earth Hereticks and Schismaticks have often risen against the Lord and his Christ that they might overturn that beautifull kingdom and establish their particular Churches upon its ruines every one pretending that his is the Church of the Lord though indeed they be no more all of them but the Synagogue of Satan and the Kingdom of him who in the Gospel is called the Prince of this world Besides it falls out many times that amongst Catholicks who alone are members of the true Church disputes and controversies arise which may trouble the tranquillity and peace that Jesus Christ hath left unto them for securing their happiness in his Kingdom It is necessary then for the service of the Church and for maintaining it always in the flourishing state wherein Jesus Christ hath established it to fight and beat off the enemies that attack it and to compose and calme the quarrels that arise amongst the children of the Church about points that are disputed with heat on all hands and which might in the end disturb the repose and peace of the Kingdom of the Son of God As I have wholly devoted my self to the service of the Church so have I endeavoured as much as lay in my power to acquit my self of the former of those two duties in my Treatises of Controversie and especially in that of The true Church I think I have been pretty successfull in that engagement and repelled all the efforts of our Protestants in making it appear by evident and unanswerable Arguments That there is no true Church but ours which is enough without more dispute to put an end to all our Controversies since they acknowledge with us that the true Doctrine is always that of the true Church of Jesus Christ I discharge my self also as well as I can of that obligation in one part of that Treatise where I maintain against Hereticks the declared enemies of the Holy See the primacy rights power and authority of the visible head of the Church At present then that I may fulfill my duty in its full extent I must labour to prevent the springing up of any dangerous division amongst Catholicks by reason of some private opinions that divide them as to that important subject of the Church into which they are all equally incorporated Now that I may solidly carry on so laudable and necessary an undertaking It is at first to be presupposed that according to Catholick doctrine the Universal Church which ought allways to be visible and to continue without Interruption untill the consummation of all things is the Society of Christians dispersed all over the World united together by the profession of the True Faith the participation of the True Sacraments by the bond of the same Law and under one and the same Head Because the Church Joh. 10. v. 16. Ephes 1. v. 22. August Ep. 50. whose first and principal property is to be perfectly one is the mystical body of Jesus Christ and that the members of a living body may receive the influences of life they must be united to the Head Hence it is that according to Saint Austin Epist 48. p. 151. l. de un Eccl. c. 4. though one may have all the rest yet if he be separated from the Head and by consequent from the body which is united to him he is out of the Church Catholick by Schism as Hereticks are cut off from it because of the want of True Faith And as all the members of the body have not the same functions but the parts that constitute it being subordinate one to another in a lovely order there are some which are for giving motion to the
AN Historical Treatise OF THE FOUNDATION AND PREROGATIVES OF THE Church of Rome And of Her BISHOPS Written Originally in French By Monsieur MAIMBOURG And Translated into English By A. LOVEL A. M. LONDON Printed for Jos Hindmarsh Bookseller to His Royal Highness at the Black Bull in Cornhill MDCLXXXV The TRANSLATOR to the READER I Should be thought perhaps no less unmannerly than fanciful if I offered any other reason of the Authors publishing this Book than what he himself is pleased to give in his Epistle Dedicatory to his Great Master the Most Christian King which is that he might thereby according to his duty second the grand design of the King and his Gallican Church in removing those obstacles that hinder the reconciliation of Dissenting Believers and in confuting the mistakes of Authors who have occasioned either a scandalous separation from the Unity of the Church or a persistance in that Separation Yet seeing the Book before it came out and since it hath been Published hath made no small noise at Rome the French Court and elsewhere The Reader possibly may think that so Publick and Religious a design hath been either very ill Managed or far worse Interpreted I have nothing to say as to that it being a matter above my reach but I know the Ingenious will be apt to make remarks such as are now a days very frequent that no great matter ought or indeed can be brought about if Religion came not in for a share and if that turn not the World it will be hard for any thing else to convert it There is Religion so called that makes Turks fight against Christians and Christians not fight against Turks that makes some States invade the Rights of the Church and some Churches usurp upon the State that makes the Godly Plot and fight for Peace sake and the harmless Doves as innocent as Serpents And since these and many other such Principles are now a days in great vogue over most part of the World one may venture to say of the Religion which many nay I would it were not most Men practise at present what the Great Author of our true Religion says of the Wind It bloweth where it listeth and Men hear the sound of it but neither know whence it cometh nor whither it goeth And I should not be irreverent beyond example if I called it downright Hocus Pocus This may seem to the Reader an extravagance and a start out of the road but I had nothing else to say for my self in attempting to Translate a Book that like a Quarter-Staff strikes on both Hands pelts Protestants and knocks down the Pope save only that nothing of Modern Religion moved me to it for indeed I find not that I have any inward call to labour in anothers Vineyard but perceiving that this is an Age wherein People either open their own Eyes or desire they should be opened I was very willing since I am no loser nor I hope the Government offended by it to reach to others the Eye-salve that hath been handed to me And truly if by impartial Readers the issue of a Mans Religion should be tried by the verdict of the Authors Book perhaps it would be no easie matter to decide the Point since they 'll find in it too much either for a True Protestant or a truly Jesuited Papist How far this may justifie my undertaking I cannot tell but since the Bookseller can satisfie the Reader with how great dispatch it hath been Translated I hope he will be so kind as to pardon the hasty mistakes of the Translator A. Lovell The Authors Epistle Dedicatory TO THE FRENCH KING SIR ONE of the greatest impediments that hinders the re-union of Protestants with the Roman Church from which by a fatal Schism they are separated is that false Opinion wherewith they are prejudiced that we raise the Popes even above the Universal Church in attributing to them what only belongs to her and in giving them an absolute and unlimited Power not only in Spirituals but also over the Temporal and Crowns of Princes The Gallican Church willing to help on that great zeal which Your Majesty makes so conspicuously successful for the Conversion of your Subjects who continue still in Error hath thought that she could not do any thing to better purpose than to remove that obstacle by undeceiving them and professing as she hath done by a solemn Declaration upon a Point of that importance her Doctrin which is in all things conform to that of the Ancient Church It is the business of this Treatise which is purely Historical to make this out by matters of fact against which no subtlety argumentation nor Artifice of Novelty can hold good Nay Sir I dare even present it to Your Majesty as a Work that perhaps may be so happy as to contribute somewhat in making the Justice of your Edict known to the World whereby in quality of Protector of the Canons you make the Ancient belief current in the most Christian Kingdom This it is Sir that makes it truly to be said that Your Majesty hath done more for the Church of Rome than the Kings your Predecessors who have enriched her with the great Revenues she possesses and who have raised her to the pinacle of Temporal Grandeur and Dignities For indeed all that Wealth and these Worldly Grandeurs belong not to her true Kingdom which being that of Jesus Christ ought not to be of this World But in commanding by your Laws that this Doctrin of Antiquity be maintained in France to which the Gallican Church which hath always vigourously defended the interests and just Prerogatives of the Church of Rome hath in all Ages inviolably adhered You most solidly establish the Primacy of the Pope against the Novel attempts of Hereticks who dispute it and do all that they can to snatch it from him At the same time you take from them the pretext of their Revolt by letting them see that we believe not that which scandalises them and which some late Divines attribute to him of their own Head against the manifest Judgment of Antiquity That Sir is what may be called an effectual endeavour for restoring the true Kingdom of the Church of Rome to its Just Rights from which Hereticks who have separated from it through erroneous Notions that have been given them of our Doctrin have in little more than an Age rent away a great part of Europe Your Majesty who hath wrought and still work so many Miracles to render your Kingdom more Powerful and more flourishing than ever and to grant us once more a general Peace by making our Enemies accept it upon the conditions you thought fit to prescribe to them is apparently appointed of God to work the greatest of all in pacifying the troubles of Religion and in rendering to the Kingdom of the Church in France its ancient extent by the reduction of the remnant of our Protestants For my own part who have but very
little longer to live and who according to my Profession can contribute nothing to your Conquests but by my ardent Prayers I shall reckon my self most happy and shall die content if I can but joyn a little by my Pen to those which you daily Atchieve for enlarging the Empire of the Church by the Conversion of Hereticks which by most soft and efficacious ways you procure And if by my Writings and particularly by this I can make it known to all the World as I hope I may that I am as true a Catholick as a good French Man and that I will die as I have lived SIR Your Majesties Most Humble most Obedient and Faithful Subject and Servant LOUIS MAIMBOURG A TABLE OF The Chapters and of their Contents CHAP. I. The design and draught of this Treatise and the Principle upon which it moves THE true Church is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ The definition thereof It s unity in the multitude of particular Churches which make but one Episcopacy and one Chair by the communion they have with a chief Church which is the center of their Vnity Antiquity is to be followed against Novelty in Doctrin that is contrary to it Vpon this Principle it is proved in this Treatise against the new Opinions what Antiquity hath believed of the first Foundation and Prerogatives of that chief Church which is the Church of Rome Page 1. CHAP. II. Of the Foundation and Establishment of the Church of Rome That St. Peter hath been at Rome A Refutation of the Erroneous reasons that some Protestants alledge for overthrowing that Truth St. Luke hath omitted a great many other things which notwithstanding are true The true Chronology which agrees with the progress and coming of St. Peter to Antioch and Rome against the wrong Chronology contrived to subvert it There were Christians at Rome when St. Paul arrived there All Antiquity hath believed that St. Peter was at Rome The Extravagance of those who have said that the Fathers were mistaken in taking the Country of Rome or Romania for the City of Rome Page 15 CHAP. III. That the Church of Rome hath been founded by St. Peter that he was the first Bishop of it and that the Popes are his Successors in that Bishoprick THAT truth acknowledged by all Antiquity In what sense Bishops sit in St. Peter's Chair and are his Successors and how Popes are in another manner Page 31 CHAP. IV. Of the Primacy of St. Peter and that he hath been established by Jesus Christ Head of the Universal Church THE true interpretation of these words Thou art Peter and upon that Rock will I build my Church How the Church is built upon Jesus Christ upon the confession of his Divinity and on the person of St. Peter His Primacy of Jurisdicton over all Believers proceeds from the confession of Faith which he made for all the rest All Antiquity hath acknowledged that Primacy of St. Peter and of all his Successors in the Bishoprick of Rome Page 37 CHAP. V. Of the Rights and advantages that the Primacy gives to the Bishop of Rome over other Bishops WHAT the Council of Florence decided as to that The superintendence of the Pope over all that concerns the Government and good of the Church in General The right he hath of calling Councils for the Spiritual and presiding in them That appeals may be made to his Tribunal and that he ought to judge of greater causes An illustrious instance of that Supreme Authority of the Pope in the History of Pope Agapetus of the Patriarch Anthimius and the Emperor Justinian The prodigious Ignorance of Calvin in Ecclesiastical History The System of his Heresie quite contrary to the Doctrin of Antiquity What are the Prerogatives of Popes that are disputed amongst Catholicks Page 51 CHAP. VI. The state of the Question concerning the Infallibility of the Pope WHether or not when he defines without a Council and without the consent of the Church he may err p. 72 CHAP. VII What Antiquity hath concluded from that that St. Peter was reproved by St. Paul WHether St. Peter was blame-worthy His action is called an error by St. Austin The opinion of St. Jerome refuted by that holy Doctor He compares the Error of St. Cyprian with that of St. Peter The History of the Error of Vigilius in regard of the three Chapters and his change compared by Pelagius II. with the Error and change of St. Peter The Schism of the Occidentals founded upon the constitution of Vigilius According to Pope Pelagius for quenching that Schism the Holy See is to be followed in its change as believers were obliged to imitate St. Peter in that which he made from evil to good St. Paul believed not St. Peter to be infallible It was before the Council of Jerusalem that St. Peter was reproved by St. Paul The true interpretation of that passage I have prayed for thee Peter that thy faith fail not p. 77 CHAP. VIII What follows naturally from the great contest of Pope Victor with the Bishops of Asia DIfferent customs in the Church concerning the celebration of Easter and of the Fast before that Feast The good intelligence betwixt Pope St. Anicetus and St. Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna notwithstanding the diversity of their customs The Decree of Pope Victor rejected by Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus and by the other Asiaticks St. Ireneus in name of the Gallican Church opposes Pope Victor None of these Bishops of the East and West believed the Pope to be infallible p. 103 CHAP. IX What ought to be inferred from the famous debate that was betwixt the Pope St. Stephen and St. Cyprian concerning the Baptism of Hereticks WHAT was the Judgment of St. Cyprian in that question and what was that of St. Stephen Councils held thereupon on both sides The Decrees of the one and other quite contrary St. Stephen cuts off from his Communion the Bishops that would not submit to his Decree Neither these Bishops nor St. Cyprian did for all that change their opinion and practice It was also permitted long after the death of St. Cyprian to maintain the same opinion and to follow the same conduct The Holy Fathers who held a Doctrin contrary to the Decree of the Pope St. Stephen What the great Council of Arles Nice and Constantinople have decided as to that question All then except the Donatists submitted to the Decrees of these Councils because they were believed to be Infallible which was not thought of Popes p. 111 CHAP. X. The fall of Liberius HIS Letters published in all places wherein he condemns St. Athanasius suppresses the term Consubstantial receives the Arians to his Communion and subscribes the Formulary of Sirmium He is for that deposed by the Church of Rome p. 135 CHAP. XI The instance of Pope Vigilius THE constitution of that Pope for the three Chapters The fifth Council which is Infallible condemns them p. 140 CHAP. XII The condemnation of Honcrius in the sixth Council THE
History of Monothelism Pope Honorius willing to agree both parties writes Letters to Patriarch Sergius which the Monothelites made use of for Authorising their Heresie The Popes John IV. Theodore and St. Martin follow a contrary conduct to his The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus with consent of Pope Agatho calls the sixth Council The History of that Council The Letters of Sergius and Honorius are examined there They are condemned of Heresie and that Pope is Anathematised He is also condemned in the Emperors Edict in the Letter of Leo II. to the Emperor In the Ancient diurnal Book of Rome in the Ancient Breviaries and in the VII and VIII Councils Convincing Arguments that the Acts of the sixth Council have not been falsified and that it cannot be said that the Fathers of that Council understood not well the meaning of Honorius All Antiquity which hath received that Council as we have it hath believed that the Pope is not infallible p. 143 CHAP. XIII Of the Popes Clement III. Innocent III. Boniface VIII and Sixtus V. THE Error of Clement in his Decretal Laudabilem recalled by Innocent III. The Error of Innocent concerning the secret of Confession He condemns that Error in the Council of Lateran That of Boniface in his Bull unam Sanctam recalled at the Council of Vienna That of Sixtus V. in the Edition of his Bible A ridiculous Answer of some Moderns p. 165 CHAP. XIV The instance of John XXII WHAT he did for Establishing his Error concerning the beatifick vision The sacred Faculty of Paris declares the Doctrin of that Pope heretical It had been condemned by Clement IV and was since in the Council of Florence King Philip of Valois obliges that Pope to recant p. 173 CHAP. XV. The tradition of the Church of Rome as to that THE Popes themselves have acknowledged that for ending difference in Religion by a Sovereign and infallible sentence there was a necessity of a Council The Heresies which Popes have condemned without a General Council have been so condemned by the consent of the Church Popes who have confessed that they had not the gift of Infallibility p. 179 CHAP. XVI The state of the question concerning the Superiority of the Council over the Pope or of the Pope over a Council WHether after a Council is lawfully Assembled the Pope being present in it or not that Council has or has not Supreme Authority over the Head as well as over the other Members of the Church or whether or not all its Authority depends on the Pope p. 187 CHAP. XVII That it is the Holy Ghost which in the definitions of Faith pronounces by the mouth of the Council WHAT is to be concluded from that Principle What it is according to the Doctrin of Antiquity to approve and confirm a Council p. 190 CHAP. XVIII That the Ancient Councils have examined the Judgments of Popes to give a last and definitive sentence upon them THE History of the Patriarch Flavian and the Pope St. Leo who submits his Judgment to that of a General Council An instance of the fifth Council that rescinds a sentence solemnly pronounced by the Pope and of the sixth which examines the sentences of Martin I. and Honorius I. approves the one and rejects the other The History of Constantine of the Donatists and of the first Council of Arles which examines the sentence given by Pope Melchiades in his first Council of Rome p. 199 CHAP. XIX That the Ancient Popes have always acknowledged and protested that they were subject to Councils THE History of Pope Sicicius and of the Council of Capona Of St. Leo in the case of St. Chrysostom against the Patriarch Theophilus Of Innocent III. in the case of the Marriage of Philip the August Instances of Pope St. Agapetus and Silvester II. p. 213. CHAP. XX. That the Ancient Popes have believed that they were subject to the Canons PRoofs of this from the conduct and protestations of the Popes Celestin I. St Leo St. Martin St. Gregory the Great John VIII Eugenius III. and Silvester II. What the Council of Florence hath defined as to that The true sense of these words against a false interpretation that hath been made of them Popes are obliged to govern the Church according to the Canons In what case they can dispense with them That they may abuse their Power Of an Appeal to a Council and of an Appeal as abusive to a Parliament p. 225 CHAP. XXI What General Councils have decided as to that Point THE History of the Council of Pisa where that question was first canvassed The debates that arose upon that Subject in the Council of Constance which is a continuation of that of Pisa The Decrees of that Council of Constance and of that of Basil upon the same Point The approbation of these Decrees by the Popes Martin V. and Eugenius IV. p. 241 CHAP. XXII Of the Writing of the Sieur Emmanuel Schelstrate against the two Decrees of the Council of Constance THE Declaration which the Clergy of France met in the Year 1682. made of their Opinion touching these two Decrees which they hold to be of infallible Authority approved by Popes and for those times when there is no Schism as well as during a Schism The Sieur Emmanuel Schelstrate undertakes to refute these three Articles in the three Chapters of his Dissertation p. 256 CHAP. XXIII A Refutation of the first Chapter of the Dissertation of M. Schelstrate THE Decree of the fourth Session hath not been falsified by the Fathers of Basil The Manuscripts of M. Schelstrate are defective and ours are true A demonstration of this Truth by two Sermons of John Gerson who rehearses that Decree before the whole Council of Constance word for word as we have it The Manuscripts by which these two Sermons have been reviewed and the other places were Gerson relates the same Decree An other demonstration of that truth by Pope Eugenius IV. and even by the Manuscripts of M. Schelstrate That question was sufficiently examined The Council consisted of the greatest and soundest part of the three obediences and the absence of others hinders not the Council from being lawful p. 261 CHAP. XXIV A Refutation of one of the two other Chapters of M. Schelstrate PRoofs of the approbation of these two Decrees of Constance The true interpretation of that word Conciliariter The abuse that may be made of the Appeal to a Council is condemned but not the Appeal it self All the Authority of Councils proceeds not from the Pope but chiefly from the Catholick Church p. 297 CHAP. XXV A Refutation of the other Chapter of M. Schelstrate THese two Decrees of the Council of Constance are for all times whilst there was a Schism and when there is none An Ecumenical Council is a whole whereof the Pope is but a part The Pope is the Head but not the Master of the Church The difference betwixt the Power of Popes and of Kings An authentick act of the Superiority of a
rest by the spirits that they send over all and some for distributing the nourishment which the rest receive for growth and for perseverance in the perfection of their state So amongst the multitudes of believers that make up the Church and who cannot all be immediately governed instructed and edified by one single man for edification of the body of Jesus Christ there must be as the great Apostle speaks a great diversity of Ministers and many Pastours subordinate one to another in an holy Hierarchy Act. 20. v. 28. to the end the people may have the Sacraments administred unto them be instructed and governed And that 's the reason that there are in the world so vast a number of particular Churches which have their several Bishops and which are all subordinate to a Principal Church of which the Bishop is the head of all the rest And these being assembled in name of their Churches in an Oecumenical Council represent the Universal Church which we believe to be infallible for absolutely deciding the points of Faith when her Bishops who are the Pastours and Teachers of Christians being one and the same as well as she say in her name to all her members in perfect unity Visum est Spiritui Sancto vobis For as the Universal Church is a whole consisting of all believers and of all particular Churches which are one by the Communion which they have with one Principal Church that is the source principle root and centre of their Unity as Saint Cyprian speaks So according to the doctrine of the same holy Father Episcopatus unus est multorum Episcoporum concordi numerositate diffusus Cypr. l. de unit Eccl. Epist 55. there is but one Episcopacy in the Church whereof each Bishop fully possesses a part and by consequent there is but one Chair wherein all Bishops sit by virtue of the Union which they have with him Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur Cypr. Ep. 52. Ecclesia una Cathedra una Domini voce fundata Cyp. Ep. 40. Ad Trimitatis instar cujus una est atque individua potestas unum esse per diversos antistites sacerdotium Sym. Ep. ad Aeon Arclat whom they ought to acknowledge for their Head This Pope Symmachus explains in a very sublime manner by an excellent comparison taken from the Trinity In the same manner saith he as there is but one Omnipotence by the Unity of Essence and Nature which so unites the three Persons that they are but one God So amongst the many Orthodox Churches throughout all Christendom there is but one onely Priesthood that is to say but one Episcopacy through the unity not onely of Faith and Belief but also of communion of all the Bishops with a Head whence results that unity which is inseparable from the Church of Jesus Christ This being presupposed in which all Catholicks do agree Aug. on Ps 101. it is certain that Jesus Christ himself hath established his Church which he purchased by his own bloud and unto which he hath given the Faith Act. 20. v. 28. the Sacraments the Law of Grace in his Gospel and a visible Head to represent him as his Vicar upon Earth And as from a very small beginning it hath enlarged it self according to the Prophecies over the whole earth So also the Apostles and their Successours after the departure of Jesus Christ have founded particular Churches establishing them themselves or ordaining Bishops for governing the believers distributed into several Dioceses in all the quarters of the World Now seeing that particular Church which within a few years after the Ascension of Jesus Christ was setled in the Capital City of the Empire is without doubt the most illustrious of all others that on the one hand Hereticks not being able to endure its splendour and greatness have always furiously risen up and conspired to destroy it and that on the other all Catholicks who are sensible of the real advantages that distinguish it from all others are nevertheless divided about certain prerogatives which some attribute to it and others dispute I shall shew without speaking of other Churches what hath been the first establishment of that of Rome what is the excelling dignity thereof and what are the prerogatives rights and privileges of its Bishops And because a subject of this nature is not to be handled by Philosophical reasonings but by matters of fact drawn from Scripture interpreted according to the Fathers Councils and ancient Traditions which are the two principles of true Theology therefore you are not to expect any speculation or Philosophy in this Treatise which is purely Historical I do in the very entry declare that there is nothing of mine in this work For I doe no more but as a sincere and exact Historian barely alledge by uncontroverted matters of fact drawn from the one or other of those two sources what venerable Antiquity believed concerning that important matter This method we usefully employ against our Protestants We make it clearly out to them that what we believe of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass the Invocation of Saints prayer for the dead and other controverted points is the ancient Doctrine of the Church and that so their belief contrary to ours being new is false We force them to acknowledge that what they hold with us concerning Infant Baptism the Baptism of Hereticks and the change of the Sabbath into Sunday of which Scripture makes no mention they have it onely from Tradition and the ancient Practice of the Church and that therefore they reject the anabaptists because of the Novelty of their Doctrine And this is also the great Principle that the ancient Fathers made use of against the Hereticks of their times Let us onely consult the order of time Ex ipso ordine manifestatur id esse dominicum verum quod sit prius traditum id autem extraneum falsum quod sit posterius immissum Tertull de praescr c. 32. and we shall know that that which hath been first taught us cometh from the Lord and that it is truth but that on the contrary what new thing hath since been introduced cometh of the Stranger and is false And in his fourth Book against Marcion Quis inter nos determinabit nifi temporis ratio ei praescribens autoritatem quod antiquius reperietur ei praejudicans vitiationem quod posterius revincetur l. 4. cont Marci c. 4. Who can put an end to our differences unless it be the order and decision of time which Authorizes the Antiquity of Doctrine and declares that defective which comes not till after that ancient Belief Upon the same ground St. Jerome who flourished about the end of the fourth Century said to one of his Adversaries who would have made a new Party in the Church Why do you offer after four hundred years Cur post quadringentos annos docere nos
niteris quod ante nescivimus Hier. Epist ad Pammach Ocean to teach us that which was not known before Pope Celestin I. Exhorting the Gallican Church to repress a sort of People that would have established new Doctrines concludes with these very pithy words Corripiantur hujusmodi non sit illis liberum habere pro voluntate sermonem Desinat incessere novitas vetustatem Coelest Ep. ad Episc Gall. Let such men be corrected let them not have the liberty to say what they please let not Novelty insult over Antiquity And Sixtus III. Animated by the same Spirit that his Predecessour was and following his steps speaks to John of Antioch with the same force writing to him in these terms Let no more be allowed to Novelty Nihil ultra liceat Novitati quia nihil addi convenit vetustati Six III. Ep. ad Joan. Antioch because nothing ought to be added to Antiquity Not but that the Church which makes no new Articles of Faith may declare after many Ages being instructed by the Holy Ghost which successively teaches her all truth that certain matters that have not been before examined whether or not they be Articles of Faith are really such as she hath done upon many occasions obliging us to believe distinctly what was not as yet known to be matter of Faith But that we ought so to stick to that which hath been believed in Antiquity in matter of Doctrine and especially in the four or five first Ages when according to our Protestants themselves there was as yet no corruption in Doctrine that new Doctours may add nothing of their own invention nor establish any Novelty contrary to it This solid Principle being equally received by Catholicks and Protestants I hope to satisfie both in declaring calmly and without dispute by the bare relation of evident matters of Fact what the ancient Church hath believed concerning the establishment of the Church of Rome and the Prerogatives and rights of her Bishops This then is the Method which I shall trace in this Treatise CHAP. II. Of the Foundation and Establishment of the Church of Rome ALL Catholicks who know that the Popes are the Successours of St. Peter agree amongst themselves as to that point but not with all Hereticks For there are some Modern who confidently deny that that Divine Apostle ever was at Rome or that he fixed his Chair either there or in the City of Antioch Calvin l. 4. Inst c. 6. They ground so extraordinary and new an Opinion upon the silence of St. Luke and St. Paul who having been at Rome would not have failed to have spoken of St. Peter and to have found Christians if he had already Preached the Gospel there besides they ground it upon a certain Chronology which they have made as they thought fit of the Acts of the Apostles and which can no way agree with that History of St. Peter and in fine upon the very Epistles of that Apostle who gives us to know that his Mission was into Asia and that he died at Babylon There is nothing that gives a clearer proof of the weakness and delusion of the wit of man than when by that Pride which is so natural to him he shakes off that Authority to which he is obliged to submit and for that end opposes it by his false reasonings that serve for no other purpose but to discover his blindness and vanity Though we had elsewhere no Intelligence of the Voyage to and Chair of St. Peter at Rome yet no man of sense would suffer himself to be persuaded by such inconclusive arguments so easie to be refuted St. Luke says nothing of it in the Acts of the Apostles Hath he mentioned there any thing of St. Paul's Journey into Arabia of his return to Damascus and then three years after to Jerusalem of his Travels into Galatia his being ravished up into Heaven his three Shipwrecks his eight Scourgings and of a thousand things else that he suffered shall one conclude from that silence that all is false And though St. Paul had not written of these things himself or if his Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians Galat. 1. 2 Cor. 2. had never come to our hands would that silence of St. Luke have been of any greater force to prove that that is not true seeing it is really so and was true before St. Paul wrote any thing of it That Evangelist saith St. Jerome hath past over a great many things which St. Paul suffered as likewise that St. Peter established his Chair first at Antioch In Ep. ad Galat. c. 2. and then at Rome And as to the Chronology calculated to refute the two Foundations of Antioch and Rome we maintain that it is false and it is easie to give another fixed by the ablest writers of Ecclesiastical History and Chronologers which perfectly agrees with the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Paul Take it thus then in a few words The year of our Lord thirty five that Apostle was sent with St. John to Samaria Anno 35. to lay hands upon those whom the Deacon St. Philip had newly converted there Act. 8. v. 20. And having Preached the Gospel to the People of that Province he returned to Jerusalem where St. Paul three years after his Conversion went to visit him in the year thirty nine Now seeing the Church at that time lived in a profound peace St. Peter took so favourable a time to go visit Anno 39. as St. Luke saith in express terms Galat. 1. v. 18. Act. 9. v. 31. 32. all the Believers that the Disciples dispersed through the Provinces during the Persecution of the Jews after the Martyrdom of St. Stephen Act. 11. v. 19. Euseb in Chron. Chrysost Hieron Greg. M. alii had gained to Christ And then it was that being informed that many of these dispersed Disciples had by their Preaching wrought much fruit at Antioch he went and setled his Patriarchal Chair in that great City the Capital of the East as the Ancients assure us From thence seeing he had the care of all the Churches having given necessary orders for the government of that of Antioch Anno 40 41. Anno 42. he returned into Judaea visits Lidda Joppa Caesarea opens a door to the calling of the Gentiles by the Conversion of Cornelius the Centurion and returns to Jerusalem Act. 11. v. 4. where having declared what God had revealed to him upon that Subject he was informed by the relation of those that came from Antioch that the number of Believers increased there dayly And therefore St. Barnabas was sent thither V. 22. who finding that there was a great Harvest there went to fetch St. Paul from Tarsus to assist him in the work V. 25. and both of them laboured in that holy employment for the space of a whole year with so great success Anno 43. that there the Believers who
into this which comprehends the Faith of the Divinity of Jesus Christ the confession of that Faith and the person who made that confession Now seeing the Church is the Society of true Christians and that the first object of the Faith of Christians as Christians Ephes 2. is Jesus Christ by the same it is that Jesus Christ is the first foundation of the Church and that no other than he can be laid for grounding and establishing the Faith of Christianity Moreover as it is not enough to be a true Christian to believe in Jesus Christ Rom. 11. and to preserve that Faith in the heart if we do not also confess that we believe in him therefore it is that the Church again is founded upon the confession of the Divinity of Christ In fine besides Faith and the publick profession of it the Church also which is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ must be well governed For that purpose he hath appointed in it Apostles Ephes 4. v. 11.12 Prophets Evangelists Pastours and Teachers that they may labour in perfecting the Saints according to the functions of their Ministery for edifying of the body of Jesus Christ And thence it is that because of that illustrious confession of the Divinity of the Son of God which St. Peter made in name of all the Apostles he established him the foundation of the Ministery and Government of the Church by giving him the oversight and authority over all the rest who are subordinate to him in their functions and inferiour Ministeries as to their Head Wherefore Jesus Christ immediately after said to him giving him that supream power and authority in his Church I will give unto thee the Keyes of the kingdom of heaven and whatever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shalt be loosed in heaven And that promise which could not fail of being accomplished was then fulfilled when the Son of God after his resurrection said to him thrice Feed my sheep John 20. I know that according to the sentiment of the Fathers and principally of St. Augustine he spake these words unto him as to one who was the Figure of the Church with relation to all the Apostles and their Successours the Bishops who are also the foundations and pillars of the Church according to St. Paul and to whom Jesus Christ hath said Cypr. Ep. 27. de laps Hier. l. 1. cont Jovin August Con. 2. in Psal 30. in Psal 86. that whatsoever they shall bind upon Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever they shall loose upon Earth shall be loosed in Heaven But there is this difference betwixt Saint Peter and all the rest that when he speaks to all in common he gives them that which is common to all the Apostles and wherein they are all equal as the power of administring Sacraments teaching all Nations baptizing forgiving sins and what belongs to the other Apostolical functions And when he applies himself particularly to Saint Peter Cypr. lib. de unit Eccles Ep. 55. 73. Hieronym adv Jovinian l. 2. Optat. cont Parmen l. 2. he gives him that which is proper to himself speaking to him in the singular number for setling in his Church the unity whereof he makes him the principle and foundation to which all the rest must have a reference that they may be but one by the union which they ought necessarily to have with their Head without which they neither are nor can doe any thing For as St. Peter was the first that publickly confessed the Divinity of Jesus Christ which he had by revelation and that the rest knew it not but by his means and that they answered onely by his mouth joyning with him on that great occasion So Jesus Christ in consideration of that primacy of Confession hath given him the primacy over all the rest making him their head and that one that original foundation and principle of unity upon which he hath built the Church in regard of its government So that although all the rest received Immediately from Christ the power of binding and loosing and of governing their Churches yet they cannot exercise it but by virtue of the union which they have with St. Peter without which they would continue no longer in unity nor by consequent in the Church And it is upon that that the Primacy of Saint Peter is founded and that he is next to Jesus Christ and not as he is by his own power and virtue but by commission the foundation and head of the Church The Protestants who by a deplorable Schism not without Heresie have gone out of the unity of the Church by making separation from the Chair of St. Peter which is the principle original and centre thereof have in vain disputed this Doctrine with all their force untill this present I shall not here undertake a refutation of their objections whereby they pretend to overthrow it and whereof the weakness hath been made appear in a vast number of great and learned Answers that have been made to them But to avoid disputing which is unseparable from the opposing of arguments to arguments for refuting adversaries and that I may onely make use of that great maxime which alone I am to employ in this Treatise I shall onely say in one word that if we consult Antiquity we shall find by tracing it to the first Ages of the Church that it hath ever constantly believed that Primacy of St. Peter This is easily proved by the testimonies of almost all the holy Fathers Hippolyt Martyr de consum mundi Tertul. de praes c. 22. Iren. Origen in Ep. ad R. c. 6. Cypr. lib. de unti Eccl. Epiph. in Anchor Amb. in Luc. c. 10. Greg. Naz. or 26. Hilar. in Matth. c. 16. Hier. adv Jovin l. 2. Optat. Melev cont Parmen l. 2. Cyrill Alex. in Joan c. 12. August in Joan. tr 11.36 Ep. 161. who in an infinite number of places in their Works say That he is the Rock and Foundation of the Church that his Chair is the chief Chair to which all the rest must unite that he hath the Supreme power to take care of the flock of the Son of God that he hath received the Primacy to the end that the Church might be one that he is the first the chief and the head of the Apostles that he is the inspectour of all the Universe he to whom Jesus Christ hath committed the disposition of all things Chrysost hom 13. in Matth. in Joan. hom 87. de beat Ignat. St. Leo Serm. in Anniversar su Assumpsit to whom he hath given the rule over his brethren who is preferred before all the Apostles and who governs all Pastours with many other encomium's of that nature all which magnificently express his Primacy and which have been often repeated and approved in General Councils And that supereminent dignity of St. Peter was so well known even
of the Pagans in Antiquity that Porphyrius one of their greatest Philosophers upbraided the Christians as St. Jerome informs us that their St. Paul was so rash as to have dared to reprove the Prince of the Apostles and his Master Hieron Ep. 89. Since then all venerable Antiquity hath believed the Primacy of St. Peter which our Protestants contest by the novelty of their Doctrine we have reason once more to say to them Desinat incessere novitas vetustatem After all it is so evident that Jesus Christ who will have his Church to continue to the end of the World hath given St. Peter the Primacy and Supreme dignity of visible Head of the Church for himself and Successours in that Principal Chair which that great Apostle fixed at Rome that it would be superfluous to attempt to prove it For if it had been so confined to his Person that it descended not to his Successours it would follow that after the death of St. Peter the Church was fallen that it had no longer that Principle of unity which makes it one that it was no more but a body without a head and a ruinous building without a foundation Besides Is it not well known that it is an order naturally fixed in lawfull Successions that Kings and other Princes and their Officers in the Civil State Bishops Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs nay and Ministers amongst our Protestants succeed to the rights and powers of their Predecessours But though we had no such convincing reasons Concil Sardic Ep. ad Jul. in frag Hil. Con. Constant ad Dam. Conc. Ephes Conc. Calcedon ad Leon. Conc. 6. Act 18. Ep. ad Agath Iren. l. 3. cont Valent Cyprian ad Corn. Ep. 55. l. de unitat Optat. contra Parm. l. 2. Vincent Lirin lib. contra Haer. c. 3. Hier. ad Dam. August de duab Ep. Pelag. l. 1. c. 1. Ep. 92.162 Chrysost Ep. 1. ad Innoc. Prosper de voc gent. l. 8. c. 6. St. Leo. St. Gregor Theodoret. Socrates Sozom. alii passim yet it would be enough to say that all the same evidences of Antiquity that have given testimony to the Primacy of St. Peter and to his supreme power in the Universal Church have also by common consent attributed it upon the same words of Jesus Christ to the Bishops of Rome who are the Successours of the Prince of Apostles There is nothing more ordinary in the Councils and Fathers where the same things that are said of the Primacy of St. Peter and of the Prerogatives of his Chair at Rome are in formal terms most frequently found repeated to express the Primacy of the Popes their super-intendance in the Universal Church and the superiority of their Chair and of the Church of Rome to which they declare that all the rest ought to be united as Lines to their Centre and as to the source of Sacerdotal Unity And that 's the reason why we call the Universal Church the Roman-Catholick and Apostolick Church because all particular Churches of which that great body is constituted must be united in communion with the Pope of Rome their Head that so they may be Members of the true Church of Jesus Christ which is no ways one but by that union which maketh its perfect unity I have me thinks made it hitherto clear enough according to all Antiquity opposite to the novelty of our Protestants what is the belief of Catholicks concerning St. Peter and of his Successours in his Bishoprick of Rome We must now in order examine sticking close to Antiquity against all Novelty what Prerogatives and Rights that Primacy gives to Popes what it is that all Catholicks agree in and wherein it is that they differ about that point and prove by uncontroverted matters of Fact without disputation what Antiquity which ought to direct our belief in spight of all the attempts of Novelty hath believed concerning points of that importance CHAP. V. Concerning the rights and advantages that the Primacy gives to the Bishop of Rome over all other Bishops I Think that point cannot better be decided than by the Decree of the Council of Florence in the year 1439. when that famous re-union was made betwixt the Latin and Greek Churches after many celebrated conferences and great contests that happened there during the space of fifteen months betwixt the learnedst men of both Churches about that Subject and other controverted points This is the definition of the Council Item we define that the Holy Apostolick See and the Pope of Rome have the Primacy over all the world that the Pope of Rome is the Successour of St. Peter Prince of the Apostles that he is the true Vicar of Jesus Christ and Head of all the Church the Father and Teacher of all Christians and that our Lord Jesus Christ hath given him in the person of St. Peter full power of feeding ruling and governing the universal Church in the manner specified in the Acts of Councils and holy Canons For it is precisely so in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the Latin Juxta eum modum qui in Actis Conciliorum in Sacris Canonibus continetur As it is to be read in Blondus Secretary to Pope Eugenius Decad. 3. l. 10. who presided in that Council In Ekius his Treatise of the Primacy of the Pope Lib. 1. in the Bishop of Rochester's five and twentieth Article against Luther Cap. Vlt. and in Albertus Pighius his fourth Book of the Hierarchy That is to say in English To govern the Church in the manner which is found expressed in the Acts of the Councils and in the Holy Canons not as Abraham of Candie hath very ill rendered it quemadmodum etiam which gives it a quite contrary sense to the intention and words of the Council as will manifestly appear in another place of this Treatise At present it is enough that we know according to that Council that the Primacy of the Pope entitles him to the inspection of all that concerns the government and welfare of the Church in general which is more than any Bishop of what dignity soever he may be can challenge For the power that other Bishops have by Divine Right to govern the Church reaches not beyond their Dioceses but that of the Pope as Head of the Church Universal extends every where when the good of all Believers in general is concerned of whom he is to take the care And that supreme dignity gives him a great many rights which none but he alone can enjoy To him application is made to have resolutions in difficulties that may arise in matters concerning Faith Hieron ad Ageruch Ep. 2. Innoc. 1. apud Aug. Epist 93. August Epist 106. Jul. apud Athan. Apol. 1. manners or general Customs Of this we have evident proofs in the Holy Fathers and an illustrious instance of it hath been seen in our days in that famous letter which the Bishops of France wrote to Pope
condemn it may be seen that the ancient Church believed and did what Catholicks believe and practise concerning the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass the seven Sacraments the Consistency of Grace with Free-will the Authority of Tradition the Invocation of Saints Churches dedicated and consecrated to God in memory of them the Veneration of their Relicks and Images Prayer for the dead the Fasts of Lent and of the Ember weeks the distinction of Holy days and working days that of the Habits of Lay-men and Church-men the single life of the Clergy Vows Sacred Ceremonies in the administration and use of the Sacraments and in publick Worship Divine Worship in Greek all over the East and in the Latine Tongue in the West though in most Provinces this was not understood but by the Learned in a word concerning all that distinguishes us from Protestants but especially Calvinists This the famous Cardinal Perron made out by unquestionable testimonies in his Reply to the King of Great Britain where he shews the conformity of the Ancient Catholick Church with ours in the Eighteenth Chapter of the first Book and throughout the whole Third Fourth Fifth and Sixth Books of that Learned Work And to which also David Blondel a Man incomparably more able than Calvin especially in the knowledge of Antiquity thought it not fit to make an Answer in that overgrown Volume which he wrote against the Reply and wherein he thought it convenient to begin his pretended refutation onely at the Three and twentieth Chapter of the first Book and to end it with the Four and thirtieth of the same Book But to pass by the Protestants against whom I pretend not to Dispute It is enough to me that hitherto without any disputation I have proved by Antiquity alone the Primacy of St. Peter and of the Popes his successours in the Chair of Rome and the Prerogatives and Rights which are inseparable from that Primacy wherein all Catholicks agree However it is very well known that at present they are not all of the same mind as to certain other Prerogatives which some grant and others will not allow to him and especially these four which are Infallibility Superiority over a General Council the Absolute Power of Governing the Church independantly of the Canons and the Direct or Indirect Power over Temporals And therefore I must now without deviating from my Principle drawn from Antiquity make appear without disputing and reasoning but as a bare Relater of the sentiments of the Councils and Fathers nay and of the Popes themselves what venerable Antiquity hath always believed concerning these points CHAP. VI. The Question stated concerning the Infallibility of the Pope THE Question here is not to know whether the Pope as a private Doctour and onely giving his opinion and thought of a point of Doctrine concerning Faith and Manners may be deceived for it was never doubted but that in that quality he speaks onely as another Man and that by consequent through the weakness and infirmity which is incident to all Men he is subject to Errour according to the saying of the Psalmist Omnis homo mendax Nor is it the question neither to enquire whether he be infallible when he pronounces from the Chair of the Universal Church jointly with the Members that are subject to him as to their head whether it be in a General Council where he presides in person or by his Legats or with the consent of the greatest part of Catholick Churches and Bishops For as we all allow that Jesus Christ hath given the gift of Infallibility to his Church and to a Council which represents it for determining Sovereignly by the Word of God the differences that might arise amongst Catholicks concerning these points of Doctrine so we do confess that when the Pope speaks and decides in that manner according to which he may say Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis his words and decisions are Oracles and he can in no ways be deceived As to this there is no disagreement amongst Catholicks The question then that may be debated is to know whether when he speaks from his Chair of Rome as the Master and Teacher of all Believers and having well examined the point in hand in several Congregations his Consistory or his Synod of his Suffragans of his Cardinals and Doctours nay and having consulted Universities and by most publick and solemn Prayers begg'd the assistance of the Holy Ghost he teaches all Christians defines proposes to the whole Church by a Bull or Constitution what Christians are to believe whether I say when he pronounces in this manner he be Infallible or not and whether his Judgment given and declared in that manner may not be corrected by an Universal Council And this methinks is all that can be said in clear and formal terms as to the state of this formal question And it is the very same about which all Catholick Doctours do not agree For most part of the Doctours on t'other side of the Alpes especially the famous Cardinals Cajetan Baronius and Bellarmine and all the Authours who have followed them will have the Pope in that case when he declares solemnly to all Believers by his Constitutions what they are to believe as to any controverted point to be no ways liable to a mistake On the contrary an infinite number of the most noted Doctours of their time as Gerson Major Almanus the Faculty of Theologie of Paris so often and so publickly praised by the Popes and all France as it is even acknowledged by the Doctours Navarr Victoria and John Celaia Spaniards Denis the Carthusian Tostatus Bishop of Avila in his Commentaries upon St. Matthew and in the second part of his Defensorium Thomas Illyrius a Cordelier in his Buckler against Luther which he dedicated to Pope Adrian VI. The Cardinals of Cusa of Cambray and of Florence the Bishops of France in their Assembly representing the Gallican Church Aeneas Sylvius before he was Pope Pope Adrian VI. when he was Professour at Louvain in his Commentary upon the Fourth of the Sentences which he caused to be reprinted at Rome when he was Pope without any alterations and a thousand other most Catholick Doctours of the Universities of France Germany Poland and of the Low Countries who have all very well defended the Primacy of the Pope all these I say maintain that he is not Infallible if he do not pronounce in a General Council or with the consent of the Church The diversity of Sentiments amongst Catholicks about that Subject is then a matter of fact not to be question'd But what part are we best to take in this dispute as the most rational and best grounded that 's a question which I ought not to answer according to the design I have taken and the method that I have proposed to my self in this Treatise I shall onely then barely relate what hath been believed as to that in Antiquity and I shall do it without touching at the
matter of Right but onely faithfully producing uncontroverted matters of fact which make appear what the belief of the Ancient Church was concerning that Point CHAP. VII What Antiquity hath concluded from St. Peter's being reprehended by St. Paul THAT Action which was of great importance and which notwithstanding is not mentioned by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles is related by St. Paul himself in a very few but very significant words But when Peter says he Galat. c. 2. in the second Chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians was come to Antioch I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed For before that certain came from James he did eat with the Gentiles but when they were come he withdrew and separated himself fearing them which were of the circumcision And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel I said unto Peter if thou being a Jew livest after the manner of Gentiles and not as do the Jews why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews It is evident that St. Paul in that place rebukes St. Peter and that sharply too and that he not onely relates what he said unto him upon that occasion but also assures us that St. Peter was to be blamed and consequently had erred Now wherein had he erred according to Saint Paul It was not that he had lived with Jews according to the Law of Moses August Epist ult ad Hieronym concerning the distinction of meats for before the Synagogue was honourably interr'd the legal Ceremonies might still be observed when it was thought convenient as Saint Paul himself Act. 16.18.21 oftner than once observed them But it was in that he withdrew himself from the converted Gentiles and that living no longer with them for fear of offending these Jews that were come from Jerusalem he gave occasion to the other Jews and converted Gentiles to think that they were still obliged to observe the Law of Moses The truth is some of these new Christians amongst the Jews Act. 15. who were lately come to Antioch had caused a great deal of trouble in that Church because they maintained that all who had embraced the Faith of Jesus Christ were obliged to be Circumcised if they were not so before and to observe the Law of Moses without which they could not be saved St. Paul and St. Barnabas who at that time still Preached the Gospel at Antioch with all their might withstood those false Apostles and taught the contrary But when those poor Christians of Gentilism saw that the Prince of the Apostles who had far greater authority than St. Paul had wholly changed his conduct after the arrival of these Jews that he ate no more of meats prohibited by the Law and that those of Antioch who were converted from Judaism and even Barnabas who was before for the liberty of the Gospel did the same as Saint Peter did and separated from them they thought that they onely did so because it was in reality found that these legal observations were necessary to Salvation and that they were obliged to keep them as well as the Jews And that made St. Paul tell Saint Peter that he compelled the converted Gentiles to Judaise because by his example which is a stronger and far more persuasive argument than words are he gave them to know that for all they were Christians yet they were still obliged to observe the Law of Moses which is contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ whose yoke is easie and who by the New Law of Grace hath put us in the perfect liberty of the Sons of God And therefore Saint Paul on that occasion said That St. Peter and those who adhered to him in that conduct which made the converted Gentiles to err walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel Quod hoc ei coram omnibus dixit necessitas coegit Non enim erat utile errorem qui palam noceret in publico non emendare Aug. lib. de Expos Epist ad Galat. Si verum scripfit Paulus verum est quod Petrus tunc non ingrediebatur ad veritatem Evangelit id ergo faciebat quod facere non debebat Epist 19. ad Hier. c. 2. Petro dicenti quod fieri non debebat l. 6. contra Donat. c. 2. Take the words of St. Austine concerning that action of St. Peter in three or four passages of his works where he plainly calls it an errour St. Paul saith he was obliged publickly to reprove Saint Peter that he might cure all the rest by that remedy for an errour that did hurt to the publick was not to be rebuked privately If St. Paul said true says he in another place Saint Peter walked not then according to the truth of the Gospel and did what he ought not to have done It maketh nothing to the purpose to say as St. Jerome hath done that all that was but a design laid betwixt St Peter and St. Paul to bring the Jews to their duty by letting them see that their Protectour St. Peter submitted to that reprimand of St. Paul Besides that that way of proceeding suiteth very ill with the temper of St. Paul and agrees not at all with his words that dissimulation no ways justifies Saint Peter and makes St. Paul an Accomplice in his fault For it is not at all lawfull to dissemble in such a manner as that the dissimulation becomes the cause of a great scandal and stumbling-block Hieron Ep. 86. seq August Ep. 8. seq Consilium veritatis admisit rationi legitimae quam Paulus vindicabat facile concensu Cypr. ad Quint. Ep. 71. which makes people fall into errour by compelling them to Judaize St. Austine then who valiantly oppugns that opinion which so little favours those two great Apostles and who alledges for himself St. Ambrose and St. Cyprian is so persuaded that St. Peter on that occasion erred that he makes use of that Instance to excuse the errour of St. Cyprian concerning the Baptism of Hereticks which he reckoned to be invalid If St. Peter Si potuit Petrus contra veritatis regulam quam postea Ecclesia tenuit cogere Gentes Judaizare cur non potuit Cyprianus contra veritatis regulam quam postea tota Ecclesia tenuit cogere haereticos schismaticos Re-baptizari Aug. l. 2. de Bapt. contra Donatist c. 1. Peter saith he could compell the Gentiles to Judaize contrary to the rule of truth which the Church hath since followed Why might not St. Cyprian compell Hereticks and Schismaticks to be Re-baptized contrary to the rule of truth which the whole Church hath observed since And elsewhere he makes use of the same instance to condemn that errour of St. Cyprian I admit not says he that Doctrine of Cyprian Hoc Cypriani non accipio
which being barely related will clearly determine that affair Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople being corrupted by Theodore Bishop of Pharan Lateran Synod sub Martr 1. Authour of the Heresie of the Monothelites who would not acknowledge two Wills and two Operations the one Divine and the other Humane in Jesus Christ undertook to spread that Heresie all over the East For that end seeing he had already on his side Cyrus Bishop of Phasis Histor Miscell l. 18. Cedren Zonar in Heracl who was shortly after Patriarch of Alexandria Macarius Patriarch of Antioch and Athanasius Patriarch of the Jacobites he acted so cunningly that being powerfully seconded by these three Bishops who were much esteemed by the Emperour Heraclius he drew that poor Prince in his declining Age into that Heresie So that he prevailed with him to make that famous Edict under the name of Ecthesis or the exposition of Faith whereby he commands all his Subjects inviolably to follow that Doctrine And then that Patriarch of Constantinople having caused it to be signed by all the Bishops of his Patriarchy whom he had assembled in a Council he affixed it upon the Doors of his Cathedral Church at the same time that Cyrus planted the same Heresie in Aegypt Now seeing Sophronius Patriarch of Jerusalem vigorously opposed it he caused that pernicious Doctrine that came near the Errour of Eutyches who confounded the two Natures in Jesus Christ reducing them singly into one to be condemned in his Synod as the Council of Chalcedon had condemned the other Sergius finding himself attacked in this manner Sect. Syn. Act. 12. wrote a long Letter to Pope Honorius wherein he accuses Sophronius of troubling the Peace of the Oriental Church by introducing a new Doctrine by these new terms of Two Wills and Two Operations which had never been heard of before neither in the Fathers nor Councils Cyrus failed not to second his Collegue in Impiety complaining as he had done of Sophronius to the Pope And that Patriarch also on his part did what he ought in defending himself well and in making known to Honorius the extreme danger they were in in the East of seeing errour triumph by power and by the Artifices of these Hereticks if a speedy course were not taken It was never more apparent than on this occasion that when the Catholick Faith is to be declared one must never biass nor dissemble and conceal part of truth for reconciling both parties and bringing back to the Church those Sext. Synod Act. 12. who through Heresie or Schism have separated from it Honorius who was a very peaceable Man and so zealous for the peace of the Church that he endeavoured to accommodate all matters and content both parties Wrote back to Sergius in a manner whereby that Patriarch and his party took great advantage publishing in all places and persuading many by the reading of these Letters That the Bishop of Rome owned at that time by the Greeks for Head of the Church and Ecumenical Pope approved their Doctrine which rendered the party of the Monothelites more powerfull than ever The Successours of Honorius Hist Miscel Cedr Zonar who in the interim died took a conduct quite contrary to his for quenching that great conflagration that spread over all the East John the IV. in his Council of Rome annulled all the Decrees which these Monothelites had made in their Synods Pope Theodore condemned and deposed Pyrrhus Anastas in Theodor who succeeded Sergius and maintained his Heresie and after him his Successour Paul the most furious of all those Hereticks who as a foaming and raging Bear ravaged the Vineyard of our Lord For he grew to that height of more than Barbarous fury as to cause the Popes Nuncio's sent to Constantinople for remedying these disorders to be scourged The Illustrious Pope Martin Auct Vit. S. Mart. Pap. Successour to Theodore acted more vigorously than his Predecessour For in a Council of an Hundred and five Bishops which he held at the Lateran where the Writings of the Monothelites were examined with the Petitions that were presented against them he declared their Doctrine Heretical Anathematised Theodore of Pharan Cyrus of Alexandria Sergius Pyrrhus and Paul Patriarchs of Constantinople who had always maintained it Exhorted the Gallican Church Epist Mart. Pap. ad Amand. Trajectens which hath always vigorously defended the Catholick Faith against all Heresies to thunder against this as he had done and solemnly condemned the Ecthesis or Edict of the Emperour Heraclius Hist Misc l. 19. Auct Vit. S. Mart. Anastas in S. Mart. Cedr Zonar in Constante This put the Emperour Constans Grandson of Heraclius and a great Protectour of the Monothelites into such a rage that he caused the Holy Pope to be carried away from Rome and having most outragiously used him Banished him into the Chersonesus where being overwhelmed with miseries and poverty he gloriously accomplished a long Martyrdom which shortly after was followed by the deplorable death of that Tyrant His Son Constantine Pogonatus a great Catholick by his prudent conduct repaired all the faults of that unhappy Prince For having settled the Empire by the great Victories which he obtained over all his Enemies he resolved also to give Peace to the Church which his Father had troubled near Fifty years by the Monothelites Anno 680. Hist in Miscel Cedr Zonar Anastas in Agath Id. Synod 6. Act. 9. For that effect with consent of Pope Agatho he called the sixth Council at Constantinople where the business of the Monothelites was sifted to the bottom and sovereignly determined to their shame In that Council there were above Two hundred Oriental Bishops four Legats of Pope Agatho Theodore and George Cardinal Priests John a Deacon who was afterwards Pope and Constantius Sub-deacon and on the part of the Council of Sixscore Bishops held for the same purpose at Rome Three Bishops the Deputy of the Archbishop of Ravenna and many other Learned Church-men and Monks who were sent thither from the Western Church The Writings that had past on both sides upon that subject Concil 6. Act. 12. were read there and particularly the Letter of Sergius to Pope Honorius and the Pope's Answer to that Patriarch And after they had been well examined this is the Judgment which the Council in the following Session solemnly pronounced against them and is the same which we have in all the Editions and particularly in the last of Paris Act. 13. Has invenientes omnino alienas existere ab Apostolicis dogmatibus à definitionibus Sanctorum Conciliorum Cunctorum probabilium Patrum sequi verò falsas doctrinas haereticorum eas omnino abjicimus tanquam animae noxias execramur Honorium qui fuerat Papa antiquae Romae eo quod invenimus per scripta quae ab eo facta sunt ad Sergium quia in omnibus ejus mentem secutus est impia dogmata confirmavit
Having found the Epistle of Sergius to Honorius and that of Honorius to Sergius wholly contrary to the Doctrine of the Apostles the Definitions of Councils and the Judgment of the Holy Fathers and that they were conform to the false doctrine of Hereticks we absolutely reject and abhor them as pernicious to Souls We have moreover Judged that the names of Theodore Sergius Cyrus Pyrrhus c. ought to be blotted out of the Church and that with them Honorius heretofore Pope of ancient Rome ought to be Excommunicated because we have found by his Letters to Sergius that in all things he hath followed the mind of that Heretick and that he hath confirmed his impious Doctrines The holy Council repeats that Condemnation in the definition of Faith that was made in the Eighteenth Session and again Anathematises him as also the Heretical Patriarchs Sergius Pyrrhus Paul and Peter of Constantinople Cyrus of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch Ad haec Honorius Antiquae Romae Papa hujusmodi haereseos confirmator Sext. Syn. p. 1084. Edit Paris in the thanks that were given the Emperour at the end of the Council And that Emperour in his Edict whereby he Banishes the Heresie of the Monothelites out of his Empire declares the same against the Heretical Bishops and against Honorius whom he calls the confirmer of that Heresie The Council being ended the Legats brought an Authentick Copy of it to the Pope St. Leo II. who succeeded Agatho that died during that Council And this Pope Leo who understood Greek very well took the pains himself to Translate it into Latin such as we have it Afterwards Writing to the Emperour to whom he sent his Approbation of all the Acts of the Council he Anathematises Honorius Necnon Honorium qui hanc sedem Apostolicam non Apostolicae Traditionis Doctrinâ lustravit sed immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est T. 6. Concil Edit Paris p. 1027. who enlightned not says he the Apostolick Church by the Doctrine of Apostolical Tradition but who on the contrary endeavoured to destroy the Faith And in the Letters which he Wrote to the Bishops of Spain and to the King Ervigius to whom he sent the Definition of the Council to be signed he expresses himself as to that point in words at least as significant and weighty Qui immaculatam Apostolicae traditionis regulam quam à praedecessoribus suis accepit maculari consensit Ibid. p. 1252. saying That that Pope hath been smitten with an Anathema with Theodore Cyrus and Sergius for having consented that the Immaculate Rule of Apostolical Tradition which he had received from his Predecessours should be corrupted What this Pope who had Read Examined Translated and Approved that Council said of Honorius other Popes his Successours have also said in the following Ages For in the ancient Diurnal-book which is a kind of Ceremonial of the Church of Rome the Confession of Faith which all the new Elected Popes did make is to be seen and wherein they declare That they receive the Sixth General Council where Sergius Pyrrhus Paulus c. Vnà cum Honorio qui pravis eorum assertionibus fomentum impendit inventers of the Heresie of the Monothelites are say they condemned with Honorius who favoured and countenanced their wicked Doctrines Adrian II. in his Epistle that was read and received with applause in the seventh Action of the Eight Ecumenical Council confesses That the Orientals pronounced Sentence of Anathema against Honorius accused of the Heresie of the Monothelites And that great Eighth Council which so strongly maintained the Primacy of the Pope against Photius yet for all that with consent of the Popes three Legats who presided in that Council in the definition of Faith they Anathematised Theodore of Pharan Sergius Pyrrhus c. and with them Honorius Bishop of Rome Cyrus of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch These are matters of fact to be read in the Councils and in the Books which I cite and they are so strong and decisive against the Infallibility of the Pope that Baronius Bellarmine Pighius and the other modern Authours who will absolutely have the Pope to be Infallible have been forced to deliver themselves from the persecution of those troublesome matters of fact to alledge forgery in them and boldly to say that the Acts of the Sixth Council have been corrupted by Theodore of Constantinople who in hatred to the Popes foisted in immediately after the Council all that concerns Honorius and that the Epistles of St. Leo are false and have been forged by some Impostour an enemy of the Holy See For say they what likelihood that after the Letter of Pope Agatho had been read in the fourth Action wherein he sayth That the Apostolical Church hath never swerved from the truth they would have condemned one of his Predecessours and that Leo his Successour should doe the same But they who yield not to that reason nor to some other conjectures which they find to be weaker object reasons against them which they think can never be answer'd For say they if that wicked Patriarch had corrupted the Acts would not the Popes Legats who presided in the Council and brought a Copy of them to Rome have clearly seen the Imposture and that what was inserted concerning Pope Honorius was no Act of the Council which had not mentioned him Would they not have complained to the Emperour of that horrid Cheat Would they not have told Pope Leo that these Acts were falsified Would they have suffered without speaking one word that he should have Translated them in that manner to impose upon the whole Church And would the Emperour who was himself present at the Council put into his Edict that Honorius had been condemned there or at least would he have suffered that Edict to be falsified in his presence Now if any one to excuse the Legats and Pope Leo should think fit to say That these Acts were not corrupted till long after their death Might not his mouth be stopt with this Reply To what end then was that Imposture Was there not to be found in the Records of the Vatican the true Copy of that Council the Translation of it made by Pope Leo and besides a Thousand Copies of it elsewhere which might have been opposed to those Falsaries for discovering their Cheat Would not Pope Adrian very far from Writing to the Fathers of the Eighth Council that Honorius had been condemned in the Sixth have advertised them that their Copies were corrupted Durst the Fathers have renewed the Anathema against Honorius and Adrian's three Legats never have opposed it Yet they did no such thing and there was no complaint made at that time that the Acts of the Sixth Council were falsified because there have never been any other Copies of these Acts either in Writing or in Print except those which we have wherein Honorius is condemned with Sergius and Pyrrhus and the other heads of the Monothelites
As to the Epistles of Pope Leo Father Francis Cambesis a learned Jacobin Edit Paris 1648. hath so cleared the truth of them that at present no body doubts of it And besides he hath given us a very rare piece which alone might end the Controversie if there still remained any about a point so fully determined That is a little work of the Deacon Agatho Keeper of the Records and Vice-Chancellour of the Church of Constantinople For he saith there that Officiating as Secretary in the Sixth Council he Transcribed all the Acts with his own hand which were carefully kept in the Imperial Palace and that by the command of the Emperour he took five Copies of them for the five Patriarchs that so the Decisions of the Council might not be altered by Consequent it was one of these Copies which the Legats carried to the Pope who without doubt is the first of the five Patriarchs A little after he adds Id praeterea autoritate decernens ut Sergii Honoriique ac caeterorum pariter ab eâdem sanctâ oecumenicâ Synodo ejectorum nomina in sacra Ecclesiarum dyptica praeconio publico referrentur eorumque per loca imagines erigerentur that Philippicus who from his youth was bred in the Heresie of the Monothelites being advanced to the Empire caused a Picture to be removed from before the Gate of the Palace before he would enter it which represented the Sixth Council and commanded that the Images should be set up again and that the Names of Sergius Honorius and of all the rest who had been Anathematised in the Holy Ecumenical Council should be replaced in the Sacred Dypticks So many convincing evidences make it manifestly out that the Acts of that Council have not been corrupted by the Greeks And therefore most part of those that said it before abandoning so weak a defence have retrenched themselves behind another saying That the Fathers were mistaken in not having rightly understood the sense and meaning of the Epistles of Honorius who made use of a wise dispensation for uniting and calming all Winds But that is a worse and far more dangerous Answer than the former For it strikes onely at some private persons who are accused but not known upon bare conjectures of having falsified the Acts but the other attacks a whole Ecumenical Council robbing it of all the authority and force which it ought to have against Hereticks The truth is by the same liberty that is taken to say that the Council hath not rightly understood the Letters of Pope Honorius thought it hath examined them the Monothelites if there were any at present might say That it hath not rightly understood the Scriptures nor the Fathers upon the credit of whom it pretends to have rightly condemned the doctrine of Theodore of Pharan Sergius Pyrrhus Paul of Constantinople and of Macarius of Antioch and thereby are made useless all the Decrees of Councils and all the Constitutions of Popes received in the Church which have condemned as Heretical certain doctrines and certain propositions particularly pointed at and contained in the Books of some Authours as the Fathers of the Fifth Council did in regard of the Three Chapters and in our time Pope Innocent X. and Alexander VII in regard of the Book of Jansenius These are Arguments which in my opinion can never be answer'd But since the method of this Treatise is not the way of Arguments which draws always Dispute after it against those who that they may not seem to be at a stand when they are put to it by evident reason never fail of the subterfuges of perplexed distinctions which are never well understood I 'll keep within the bounds that I have set to my self and onely make use of unquestionable matters of Fact in Antiquity that History furnishes us with Upon that ground then I say for an Answer to both in the first place that whether the Acts of the Sixth Council have been corrupted or not it is certain that all Antiquity hath received it in the same manner as we have it at present with the Condemnation of Honorius Detestamurque cum eâ Sergium Honorium c. Act. ult That appears not to say any thing of Pope Leo by the Decree of the seventh Council which as the sixth did anathematises Sergius Pyrrhus and Honorius Anastas in Vit. Leon Epist. ad Joâ—â— diacon by Anastasius the Library-keeper who certainly saw the Copy that was brought from Constantinople and who in the Life of Leo II. saith that that Pope received the sixth Council where Cyrus Sergius Pyrrhus and Honorius were condemned by that Letter of Adrian II which I have alledged by the determination of the eighth Council and by the Confession of Faith which the ancient Popes made after their Election nay more than that by the constant Tradition of the Gallican Church as it may be seen in the Chronicle of Ado and in the most ancient Manuscript of his Martyrology Aetat 6. which is to be found in the Mazarine Bibliotheke This is also to be seen in the Opuscles of Hincmar Archbishop of Reims Opusc de non Trin unit where he puts the Condemnation of Honorius in the sixth Council with that of the other Monothelites And for that very reason it was that writing to Pope Nicolas he saith Opusc 33. c. 20. That it is known that all the Churches of France are subject to that of Rome and that all the Bishops are subjected to the Pope by reason of his Primacy and that therefore they ought all to obey him Apud Flodard l. 3. Hist c. 13. but salva fide adds he the Faith being secured which it is most clear he would not have added had it not been believed in France as elsewhere that Popes might err as well as Pope Honorius In fine for an authentick Confirmation of all this there is no Author to be found who before some Moderns of the last Age durst say even contrary to the Tradition of the Church of Rome that the Acts of the sixth Council have been corrupted by the Greeks This is so true that in the ancient Breviary of Rome printed at Venice in the year 1482 and 61 years after at Paris in the Year 1543 after that it is said in the first Lesson of the second Nocturn of the Office of St. Leo on the eight and twentieth of June Hic suscepit sanctam sextam Synodum in the second it is to be read In qua synodo damnati sunt Cyrus Sergius Honorius Pyrrhus Paulus c. But in the new Breviary the Name of Honorius is left out and it hath been thought sufficient to put into that second Lesson In eo Concilio Cyrus Sergius Pyrrhus condemnati sunt Whereupon it is easie to conclude from most manifest matters of Fact alone that all Antiquity Oecumenick Councils Popes all the Gallican Church nay and even the Church of Rome until the last Age have believed that
the sixth Council received by all the Church hath condemned Pope Honorius and ranked him amongst Monothelite Hereticks Whence it clearly follows That Antiquity hath believed that the Pope was not infallible The same may be said to those who maintain that the Council in condemning the Epistles of Honorius to Sergius did not rightly understand them Whether that be so or no it is certain according to your selves that it condemned them Then a whole great Council of above two hundred Bishops of the seventh Age representing the Universal Church in her Pastors lawfully assembled did not believe the Pope to be Infallible for had they been of that Belief they would have had a care whether they had well or ill understood these Letters not to have anathematised him as they did The Result of all is That Antiquity in the Seventh Eighth and Ninth Ages as well as in those that preceded hath believed that the Pope was not Infallible This is it that I was to prove leaving the Modern Doctors who hold his Infallibility to their Liberty of thinking and saying thereupon whatever they please by Logick that can never overthrow the truth of matters of Fact which I have produced and which make known to us what Antiquity hath believed concerning the Infallibility of the Pope CHAP. XIII Of the Popes Clement III. Innocent III. Boniface VIII and Sixtus V. SUch as apply themselves to the Study of Antiquity find that in the Ages following there have been other Popes that have erred in their Decisions as these that follow In the twelfth Age Ostiens C. Quarto de Divortiis Clement III. declared in his Decretal Laudabilem That the Wife of an Heretick being converted and her Husband continuing obstinate in his Heresie might be married to another which doubtless neither Catholicks nor Protestants could at present suffer to be brought into practice And therefore Pope Innocent III. who filled the Holy See shortly after Clement recalled that Constitution thereby plainly declaring that his Predecessor had erred This is affirmed by Cardinal Cortzeon who flourished in the Pontificat of Innocent III. in his Sum which I have seen in Manuscript in the Abbey Royal of St. Victor And this same Pope Innocent himself for all he was so able a man was subject to the same failing from which Popes according to the Belief of Antiquity are not exempted that is to be deceived even when they decide a point of Doctrine in their Council without the Consent of the Church The matter of Fact is related by Caesarius a Cistertian Monk Lib. 3. Historiar Memorab c. 32. and contemporary with Innocent He says that a Monk of his Order who without doubt before he entered the Monastery had given it out that he was a Priest committed daily a dreadful Sacriledge in celebrating Mass though he had never received sacred Orders Having confessed this to his Abbot who failed not to enjoyn him as he ought to abstain from saying it for the future he would not obey him for on the one hand he feared that by refraining he should disgrace himself and give occasion to his Brethren to think ill of him and on the other he thought he had no cause to apprehend that his Abbot to whom he had discovered his Crime under the inviolable Seal of Confession durst do him any prejudice because of that Discovery The Abbot being in great perplexity bethought himself to propose this Case in general Terms in a Chapter of his Order that was held some time after and asking the Question what was to be done if such a Case should ever happen in their Monasteries the whole Assembly were as much puzled as the good Abbot had been and neither the Chapter of the Cistertians nor any of the rest durst ever undertake to decide that case of Conscience which was thought to be so difficult that it was resolved upon by all to write about it to the Pope for a Resolution Innocent III. the then Pope assembled thereupon the Cardinals Doctors and Learned Men to take their Advice who after some debate agreed all in his Judgment to wit That such a Confession being rather Blasphemy than a Confession the Confessor in such a case ought to discover so horrible a Crime because it might bring great prejudice to the Church And the Year following he wrote to the Chapter what he had determined Et placuit sententia omnibus scri sitque sequenti anno Capitulo quod fuerat à se determinâ—tum à Cardinâ—libus approbatum and what was approved in that great Congregation of Cardinals It is not at all to be doubted but that that Definition is wrong So that the same Pope a little after made no Scruple to retract it in the great Council of Lateran where he himself presided Ann. 12 15. which positively declared the contrary in these Terms Caveat sacerdos ne verbo vel signo vel alio quovis modo prodat aliquatenus peccatorem Qui peccaâ—um in poenitentiali Judicio sibi detectum praesumpserit revelare non solum à sacerdotali officio deponendum decernimus verum etiam ad agendara perpetuam poenitenâ—iam in arctum Monasterium detrudendum Let the Priest have a care that he discover not either by Word Sign or in any other way whatsoever the Sin of his Penitent That if any one adds it presume to reveal the Sin that hath been discovered to him at the Tribunal of Confession we ordain not only that he be deposed from the Sacerdotal Office but also that he be confined to a Monastery there to do Penance during Life These are two quite opposite Decisions upon a Point of highest Importance Conc. Later 4. c. 21. and which concerns a Sacrament one of the Pope with his particular Council or his Council of Cardinals Priests and Deacons who represent the Church of Rome the other of the same Pope with a great Council representing the Universal Church Whence comes that difference if it be not That the Pope pronouncing and deciding upon any Point concerning Doctrine and Manners in a general Council or with the Consent of the Church is Infallible and when he acts otherwise he is not This appears still more manifestly in the Bull Vnam Sanctam of Boniface VIII whereby that Pope whose History is sufficiently known proposes to all Believers as an Article of Faith the Belief whereof is necessary to Salvation That Popes have a Supream Power over all the Kingdoms of the World as to the Temporal It was believed then in all these Kingdoms and is so still that that Definition is wrong Even they themselves who hold that the Pope hath some Power over the Temporal have a care not to say That one is obliged to believe it upon pain of Damnation and it is known that Clement V. recalled that Bull in the Council of Vienna Cap. meruit de Privilegiis That Pope then and that Council in the fourteenth Century believed not that
the Pope was infallible The same may be said of the Bull of Sixtus V. which he caused to be printed with his Bible and whereby he declares to the whole Church That that Bible is corrected according to the Primitive Purity of the Vulgar Translation And nevertheless because it was afterwards clearly seen that it was not Clement VIII suppressed that Bull and caused another to be printed wherein all the Faults of the former are very well corrected and so it may very well be concluded that Clement VIII was persuaded that his Predecessor instructing all Believers in a point that regards even the Principle of Faith might be deceived However I will not say so because I will not at all enter into Dispute with some Modern Doctors who to slip the Collar have bethought themselves to say That it is true the Bull was printed with the Bible Tannerus disp 1. de Fide q. 4. dub 6. n. 263. Thom. Comptonus in 2.2 dis 22. de sum pontif sect 5. which is still to be seen in many Libraries but that it was not affixed upon the Gates of St. Peter's Church and on the Field of Flora so long as it ought to have been according to the Laws of the Chancery of Rome As if the Truth or Falshood of the Contents of a Bull depended on the time that is to be taken in publishing it and as if the Pope who makes it became not Infallible but at the precise Minute of the Accomplishment of the time that it should have been affixed Let us leave that Instance then of Sixtus V. that we may not engage into that Sophistry of Disputation which to me seems not altogether so serious in a matter of that Importance CHAP. XIV The Instance of Pope John XXII I Shall produce no more Instances but that of Pope John XXII That Pope in his extream old Age of near fourscore and ten Years took a Conceit that as a certain and constant Truth the Opinion of some ought to be established in the Church Contin Hangii who had heretofore taught that the Souls of those who died in Grace and had been entirely purged from all the remaining dreggs of their Sins did not see the Face of God till after the Resurrection He did all that lay in his Power to have it pass He taught it publickly in Conferences and Congregations which he held upon that Subject he preached it himself he obliged by his Example the Cardinals and Prelates of his Court and other Doctors openly to maintain it He caused a learned Jacobin named Father Thomas de Valas Ibid. Gobel persona in Cosmodr aet 6. c. 71. Paul Langius in Chron. Citizen to be put in Prison who not doubting but that Opinion was an Error contrary to the express Word of the Son of God who said to the good Thief This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise preached the contrary even in Avignon where the Pope held his Court. In fine I find a Doctor of very great Authority Hadrian 6. in 4. sentent art 3. de Minist Confirm 22. whose eminent Virtue and singular Learning with a consummated Prudence in the management of Affairs raised him afterwards to the highest Dignity of the Church that says very plainly Publicè docuit declaravit ab omnibus teneri voluit quod animae c. That he obliged all men to hold that Doctrine for the future Be as it will it is certain that he did what lay in his Power to bring into his Opinion the Sacred Faculty of Theology and University of Paris which was by all men reverenced as the Mother of Sciences that for that end he sent thither two Doctors with the General of the Cordeliers who publickly maintained that Doctrine and preached the same which stirred up all Paris against them Whereupon King Philip de Valois caused all the Bishops and Abbots that then were at Paris Continu Hangii to assemble with the Doctors of the Faculty who in his Presence confounded those of Avignon and proved to them that what they had preached by order of the Pope was heretical That Prince who would suffer in his Kingdom no Novelty of Doctrine wrote to his Holiness with a great deal of Force and Respect beseeching him to retract that wicked Opinion Quatènus sententiam Magistrorum de Parisiis qui melius sciunt quid debet teneri credi in fide quam Jurista alii Clerici qui parum aut nihil sciunt de Theolâ—gia approbaret Ibid. which caused so much Scandal in the Church Nay he prayed him to send a Legate into France who in his Name might approve and confirm the Decree of the Doctors of Paris who knew far better what was to be believed as a matter of Faith than his Canonists and other Clergy of Avignon that were no great Divines The Pope who would neither wholly retract nor yet on the other hand provoke the King whose Protection he stood in need of took a middle Course which he thought would not be disagreeable unto him and prayed him to be satisfied Epist Joan. ad Philip 14. Calend. Decemb Pontif. 12. that every one might continue in their Opinion and Say Teach and Preach what they thought good upon that Subject As to that Proposition the King would again have the Advice of the Faculty Joan. Gerson Serm. in die Paschat coram Rege Petr. de Alliac prop. de toll sc coram Rege An. 1406. Gob. Perso Langius Odor Rayn ad An. 1334. whom he there assembled and the Faculty by a Decree of the Second of January One thousand three hundred and three at the Mathurins declared of new That the Opinion in question was Heretical and that by consequent it could neither be Preached nor Taught After that Philip proscribed it by Sound of Trumpet prohibiting all his Subjects to teach or maintain it and then that he might oblige the Pope to condemn it he wrote to him a second time in so forcible and extraordinary Terms that at length the Pope retracted it a little before his Death which hapned the Year following I have said all that I could in my History of the Fall of the Empire to excuse him even so far as to affirm with some that that Doctrine which he would have established by his own Authority was not as yet condemned as it was afterwards by Benet XII his Successor There are some notwithstanding who say that it had been long before rejected by the Roman Church as appears by the Confession of Faith that Clement IV. sent in the Year Two hundred threescore and seven to the Emperour Michael Paleologue whereof I have spoken in my History of the Schism of the Greeks However it be it is certain that it is an Error condemned not only by Pope Benet but much more solemnly above an hundred Years after in the third Article of the Definition of Faith which the Council of Florence made for reuniting the two
Churches And seeing it was not doubted but that Pope John XII in the manner he set about it acted with all his Authority and Force to introduce and establish that Error in the Church so also was it believed in that Fourteenth Age that the Pope teaching the Church might err and that he is not Infallible but when he pronounces from the Chair of the Universal Church as Head of it in a general Council or with consent of the principal Members of the Church who are the Bishops CHAP. XV. The Tradition of the Church of Rome as to that IT will be no difficult Task for us to prove that that Doctrine is conform to the constant Tradition of the Church of Rome as appears by the conduct of ancient Popes who in great Controversies about Faith after that they themselves had pronounced against Error have thought that for condemning it by a sovereign and infallible Sentence there was need of a Council or at least by another way the consent of the Church Vt pleniori Juâ—acio omnis possice ror aboleri Ep. 15. ad Ephes concil to the end that Error might be abolished by a more solemn and decisive judgment said the great St. Leo writing to the second Council of Ephesus though he himself had already condemned Eutyches in his particular Council which for that end he held at Rome This hath been confirmed by the Popes of the last Age when that after Leo X. had published his Bull against the Errors of Luther Solumque Concilium generale remedium à nostris praedecessoribus in casu simili usurpatum superesse Clem. VII in Bull. indict Concil 1533. Tam necessarium opus Pius IV. in Bull. confirm they declared in their Bulls speaking of the Council of Trent which was called for the supreme Decision of that Controversie that that was the last and necessary Remedy which had always been made use of by their Predecessors on the like Occasions Wherein all the Popes perfectly well agree with the fifth Council which for proving that necessity alledges the Example of the Apostles who decided in common with St. Peter the Question touching the Observation of the Law of Moses Nec enim potest in communibus de fide disceptationibus aliter veritas manifestari and then declares that otherways Truth cannot be found in Controversies that arise about the Faith It is evident by that that the Popes and that Council did not believe that the Pope was infallible for had they believed him infallible they would also have been persuaded that it was sufficient to consult that Oracle or that after his Responses and Decisions it would not have been necessary for abolishing Error entirely to have recourse to the determination of the Church represented by a Council But if it be said that there are some Heresies which the Popes alone have condemned and which have always been reckoned lawfully condemned without the Interposition of a Council it is easily granted but at the same time it may be said that that concludes nothing at all because in the three first Ages of the Church there were Heresies such as that of Cerinthus of the Ptolemaits the Severians Bardesanites Noetians Valesians and many others that single Bishops or particular Synods have condemned and which we are obliged to account Heresies tho neither Popes nor General Councils have had any hand in their Condemnation Not that these Bishops and Synods are infallible but because all the other Bishops who abominated these Heresies as much as they condemned them as they had done by approving all that they had done So when Popes have decided against any Doctrine which is afterward to be esteemed heretical it is so because they have defined with consent of the Church which hath received their Constitutions as we have in our days seen an illustrious Instance of it That which more confirms that ancient Tradition of the Roman Church is the great number of Popes who condemning some of their Predecessors after Oecumenical Councils have thereby declared that they themselves no more than others have not received of God the gift of Infallibility which he hath only bestowed upon his Church And indeed two great Popes of the last Times were so fully persuaded of this that they would not accept of it from the hands of men that would have attributed it unto them The first is Adrian VI. who in his Commentaries upon the fourth of the Sentences Art 3. de Mines confirm says positively and in a most decisive manner Certum est quod Pontifex possit err are etiam in iis quae tangunt fidem haeresiâ—â— per suam determinationem aut decretalem asserendo that he is certain the Pope may err even in matters belonging to the Faith teaching and establishing a Heresie by his Definition or by his Decretal which afterwards he proves by many Instances and very far from following Pius II. and changing Opinion as he did when he came to be Pope he persisted in it so constantly that he thought fit during his Pontificat that a new Edition of his Book should be printed at Rome exactly conform to that which he published when he was Doctor and Dean of Louvain wherein that Passage is entire without the Omission or Alteration of one single Word The second is Paul IV. who before his promotion to the Papacy had been great Inquisior Relat. Joann Hay Paris Theol. Addit aux mem de Casteluam c. 2. b. 6 the most severe and zealous that ever was for the preservation of the purity of the Catholick Faith against all Heresies Num matrimonium per verba de prasenti contractum quod est verum matrimonium verum sà cramentum juxta sanclorum Theolegorum sententiam authoritate nâ—stra dissolvi possit intelligo cum carnalis nulla conjunctio intercessit This Pope in the Year One thousand five hundred and fifty seven held a great Congregation of Cardinals Bishops and Doctors at Rome for the examining that important question Whether by the power of the Keys which Jesus Christ had given him as Successor to St. Peter he could dissolve the Marriage which the Mareschal of Montmorency had contracted in formal terms de praesenti with the Lady de Piennes Having proposed the matter to them by giving them to understand that the Question was about the deciding of a Point of very great Importance concerning a Sacrament he declared to them that he would not have them alledge to him the Examples of his Predecessors Non dubito quin ego decessores mei errare aliquando potuerimus non solum in koc sed etiam in pluribus aliis rerum generibus that he would not follow them but in so far as they were conform to the Authority of Holy Scripture and solid Reasons of Divinity For I make no doubt added he but that my Predecessors and may fail not only in this but in many other things Which he even proved by Testimonies
l. 3. c. 6. told him with a great deal of holy liberty that he forbids not to dispense but to dissipate that he knows very well that the Popes are the Stewards of the house of God but for Edification and not for Destruction and that the Steward ought to be faithful when Necessity urges Dispensation is excusable and laudable when Advantage not of a private person but of the publick requires it and when neither appear in that which is defired then what is granted is no more a faithful Dispensation but a most cruel Dissipation And this as a learned Pope teacheth Hadrian V. de dispens Apostolic renders both him that obtains that Dispensation and him that grants it criminal in the sight of God unless he that granteth it hath been without his Fault imposed upon by a false Information as many times it happens The power then of dispensing exempts not Popes according to the Ancients from the Obedience which they owe to the Decrees of Councils and when they do otherwise and act in their Constitutions contrary to the Canons that is not a lawful practice but an abusing of their power and an abuse that draws many others after it Priâ—cipium maiorum inde fuisse quod nonnulli pontisices coacervaverant sibi magistros prurientes auribus ut eorum studio calliditate inveniretur ratio quâ liceret id quod liberet pontificem esse dominum beneficiorum onniâ—nâ— Ita quod voluntas pontificis qualiscunque ea faerit sit regâ—la quâ ejus operationes actiones dirigantur c. This that great Assembly of Cardinals and Prelates pick'd out of the best and ablest men of the Court of Rome which Paul III. called in the Year One thousand five hundred and thirty eight to search for means of remedying the Troubles of the Church represented to him with much Vigour and Respect when they told him that the source of so many Disorders was the Flattery of some new Doctors who strained their false Subtilties to make his Predecessors believe that they were the absolute Masters of all in the Church that they were above all Canons and that there was no other Law for them but their own Will and Pleasure So that when it happened that some Popes manifestly abusing their power transgressed the limits set them by the Canons Appeals were made to the next Oecumenical Council Ann. 1303. as was done upon account of the Bull of Boniface VIII who pretended to a Sovereign power over all the Crowns upon Earth as the University of Paris in the Year 1491 appealed to a Pope better informed and to the first general Council concerning certain exactions and gatherings of Tenths which were attempted against the Canons and Liberties of the Gallican Church and as hath been done oftner than once in Germany upon the like Occasions But seeing that Remedy is tedious and that it may be abused by Appeals very ill brought which seeing they could not be judged in an whole Age would render the pontifical Authority useless in the smallest matters which Pius II. and Julius II. have most justly condemned instead thereof we have in France an Appeal as of Abuse to theâ—â— arliament which representing the King sitting in his Chair of Justice to whom as protector of the Canons it belongs to hinder any thing from being acted contrary to them has Right to judge whether there be any matter in the Bulls Ordinances and Ecclesiastical Sentences which wound the Canons and our Liberties For in this chiefly consist the Liberties of the Kingdom and Gallican Church that no new thing can be commanded or enjoyned us contrary to the holy Decrees of the Councils received in France and against the ancient Law in the possession whereof we have always maintained our selves without submitting to any other Laws unless we our selves consent to them so that whatever derogates from these ancient Constitutions which are our inviolable Laws is by Decree rescinded And this seems to be grounded upon that excellent Sentiment of Innocent III. a great Pope great Canonist and great Lawyer who speaks like a Pope when he says Quae in derogationem sanctorum canonum attentantur tanto potius infringi volumus carere robore firmitatis quanto authoritas universalis Ecclesiae cui praesidemus ad id nos provocat inducit Innoc. III. l. 1. Ep. ad Episc Favent We will that all that is undertaken and attempted against the holy Canons be void and null and we will it so much the rather that the Authority of the holy Church wherein we preside moves and inclines us to it As if by that he would tell us that the Authority of the Church depends upon the Observation of her Canons and Laws and not on the Liberty that a Pope might take to violate them From all that I have said in this Chapter this truth of Fact results That all Antiquity hath believed that Popes being subject to the Decrees of Councils and obliged to act and govern according to the Laws that are prescribed to them by the Canons Councils by consequent are above the Popes CHAP. XXI What General Councils have decided as to that Point SEeing that Question was not moved in the Ancient Church when all were of the Opinion that I have now mentioned Councils that decide nothing but upon occasion of Differences and Disputes which arise amongst Christians about some certain point of Doctrine have given no definitive Sentence as to that particular till it was begun to be questioned and disputed about Concil Pisan t. 11. Edit Paris Act. conc ex codic Gemmetic t 6. Spirit Monach. Dionys 1.29 l. 1. sequen Niem l. 23. Platina Ciacconius And this I think happened upon occasion of the Council of Pisa which the Cardinals of both obediences that is of Gregory XII and Benet XIII with consent of almost all Kings and Sovereigns called for extinguishing that Schism which these two Competitors and pretended Popes entertained by their Collusion and Obstinacy contrary to the express Promise they had made of resigning up their Pretensions For seeing some who stood for Gregory Ann. 1409. protested against the Council which as they said had no Authority over the Popes such an unprecedented protestation in the Church being exploded the famous Doctor Peter Plaoust one of the Deputies from the University of Paris which at that time was in the Meridian of its Reputation made a long and learned Speech in full Council 29 May. wherein he proved by many Reasons that the Universal Church and by consequent a General Council which represents her is above the Pope adding that that was the Judgment of the University of Paris and of all the other Universities of France No sooner was he come down from the Pulpit but that the Bishop of Novare stept up and read aloud a Writing which declared that an hundred and three Doctors and Licentiates of Divinity deputed by the Universities to that Council being
that the contrary opinion has not so much as the least appearance of any rational ground in Scripture For of all the passages that are cited for maintaining it there is not so much as one that is interpreted by the Church in Councils nor by any of the Holy Fathers in that most erroneous sense that they put upon them Wherein these Modern Authors who in that manner do interpret them act directly contrary to the Decree of the Council of Trent fourth Session and against the Confession of Faith enjoyned by Pius IV. which will have Scripture never to be interpreted but according to the sense that Holy Church gives it and according to the common Interpretation of the Fathers These new Doctors in that most dangerously follow the conduct of Hereticks who for maintaining their Errors interpret as they please and not as the Church pleases the Scriptures that they may wrest them to their sense Bellar. l. 5. de Rom. Pont. c. 7. Suarez l. 3. de Prim. Sum. Pont. c. 3. l. 6. de form Jur. fidel c. 4. Becan Anglico contr c. 3. qu. 3. This appears manifestly in those two passages upon which Bellarmin Suarez and after them Becanus and all the others who as these have copied or abridged them chiefly ground their opinion John Last The first passage is that where Jesus Christ saies to St. Peter Feed my Sheep Feed my Lambs Is there so much as one of the Holy Fathers who hath understood these words of the Power which St. Peter hath received over the Temporal of Princes There is none of them who hath not expounded them as they ought to be of the Spiritual Pasture which Popes are bound to give to Believers by Doctrin Example and good Government and never one of these Doctors and Masters in the Church ever let it enter into his Head to wrest them to a Temporal meaning as these new Divines have done And more Ambres l. de dig Sacer c. 2. Chrys hom 79. in Matth. c. 24. August de Agen. Christian c. 30. Tractat. 47. in Joan. in Ps 108. alii most part of these Holy Fathers having said what is most true that Jesus Christ applies these words in the person of St. Peter to the whole Church in general and to all its Pastors in particular if the new sense that these new Doctors give to them were to be followed it must be said that all Bishops and all Curates had right to dispose of the Temporals of those who by their bad Doctrin or scandalous deportment do injury to the Spiritual good of their Churches And as to that comparison which they make betwixt the Shepherd in respect of the Wolf which he may dispatch omni modo quo potest and the Pastor of the Church in regard of a Prince who may have fallen into Heresie it is not only a base Sophism contrary to the rules of right Logick but also impious and detestable which leads Men in a full career to Parricide and for which the Books that contain it have been justly condemned to the fire The second passage is taken out of St. Matthew Chapter sixteenth where the Son of God saies to St. Peter That whatever he shall bind upon Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatever he shall loose upon Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Whence these new Rabbies conclude that the Successors of St. Peter have Power to dissolve the obligation that binds Subjects to their Prince by the Oath they have made to him and by the tie of Allegiance which binds them in fidelity to him Is it not strange that Catholicks should take this liberty of wresting the sense of Scripture to what they list without any respect to the common interpretation of the Fathers to which the Council of Trent obliges them For of all the Holy Fathers who have expounded that passage there is not so much as one to be found who hath so understood it all of them have interpreted it of the Power that that Apostle received of loosing and absolving Penitents from their sins Nor do the Popes themselves expound it otherways Paul 1 Ep. â—0 ad procem Fran. Adâ—i Ep. 1. ad Carol Magn. as it may be seen in the Epistle of Pope Paul I. to the French Lords and in that of Adrian I. to Charlemagne To absolve Men from their sins is it to absolve them from their Allegiance And that whatever which signifies only any sort of sin and censure and some obligations that are not of Divine Right can that Power I say be extended to ths Temporal and to the duty that Subjects owe to Kings To persuade us of the contrary we need only read the words that go before these I shall give thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven saies Jesus Christ and not of the Kingdoms of the Earth for deposing of Kings And those that follow comprehend the use of the Power of the Keys that he giveth him for opening the Kingdom of Heaven by forgiving Men their sins or for shutting it by not absolving them John 20. as he in another place expresses himself speaking to all the Apostles after his Resurrection But that we may not swerve from the words in question we need no more but read the Eighteenth Chapter of the same Gospel of St. Matthew There it is to be seen that Jesus Christ repeats them to all his Disciples and gives them the whole Power that they import by saying to them Verily I say unto you that whatever ye shall bind upon Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatever ye shall loose upon Earth shall be loosed in Heaven If these words comprehend the sense that the new Authors give them and that their meaning is also of the Temporal it must needs be said that all the Bishops who are the Successors of the Apostles nay and all Priests who have the Power of binding and loosing may depose Kings and dispence their Subjects from the Oath of Allegiance which is the highest extravagance Or else let these Gentlemen tell us by what Authority of the Church or Holy Fathers they find that when they were said to St. Peter they have a different meaning from that which they ought to have when they were spoken to St. Peter and to all the Apostles Now that is a thing they 'll never be able to find out Miss Rom. An. 1520. Paris apud Francis Renaud Miss Rom. à Paulo III. nefar Ann. 1543. Diurn Monast Congrez Cassin à Greg. XIII confir Venet. ap Juris And this is so true that the Church of Rome her self sticking to the sense wherein all the Holy Fathers have expounded these words which Jesus Christ said to St. Peter will not understand them but of the Power which he hath given him of binding and loosing Souls For in all the ancient Missals Breviaries and Diurnals in this manner was read that Prayer which is said in the Feastival of St. Peter's Chair at Antioch Deus qui
the Iconoclaste Before that saith the same Author Popes were Subject to the Emperors and durst neither judg nor resolve of any thing that concerned them Imperatoribus suberant de iis Judicare vel quicquam decernere non audebat Papa Romanus Thus the Ancient Popes behaved themselves and so much they believed of their Pontifical Authority which does not at all reach the Temporal And to this you may add Onuphr Pavin in vit Greg. VII ex edit Gresser pag. 271. 272. that in the eight first Ecumenical Councils there is nothing to be found but what speaks the compleat submission that is due to Emperors and Kings but nothing that can in the least encroach upon or invalidate the absolute independence of their Temporal Power Now if in some of the Councils which succeeded the Pontificat of Gregory VII Kings have been threatned to be deposed and if an Emperor hath been actually deposed that was not done by the way of decision and though a Council had made a decision as to that yet it must only have been an unwarrantable attempt upon the Right of Princes and could have been of no greater Force than the Bulls whereby it hath been often enough offered at to dispossess them of their States but which have always been condemned and rejected as abusive For after all there will be reason everlastingly to say that which all Antiquity hath believed that the Church her self infallible as she is which the Pope according to the same Antiquity is not hath not received from her heavenly spouse the gift of Infallibility but as to matters purely Spiritual and wholly abstracted from the Temporal and the Kingdom of the World wherein Jesus Christ who hath said my Kingdom is not of this World would never meddle CHAP. XXX What hath always been the opinion of the Gallican Church and of all France as to that The conclusion of this Point and of the whole Treatise HItherto I have made appear what hath been the Judgment and Doctrin of Jesus Christ of his Apostles the Fathers Ancient Popes and of the Councils that is of all venerable Antiquity concerning that Power at least indirect which some would attribute to Popes Now seeing the most Christian Kingdom above all other States of Christendom hath always stuck close to the Ancient Doctrin of the Church which is the solid foundation of their Liberties Therefore it was that all the Bishops of France representing the Gallican Church the faculty of Theology of the great University of Paris so much respected in the World the chief Parliament of France and in imitation of it the rest acting in the Name and by the Authority of the King as Protector of the Canons and holy Decrees have even in this Kingdom maintained the Ancient Doctrin and upon all occasions condemned that pernicious novelty which is contrary to it This I intend briefly to prove The Gallican Church since the settlement of the most Christian Monarchy amongst the Gaules hath always inviolably observed the Rights of the Royalty in her Councils which were so often called by the sole Authority of Clovis and his Successors especially during the first and second race of our Kings And when the Popes would have attempted any thing upon their Temporal the French Bishops have always opposed it with all imaginable force and vigour Of this I shall give you some instances Lotharius Louis and Pepin Sons of Louis the Debonaire instigated by some who had a mind to make their advantage of the dissentions that they had sowed betwixt the Father and his Children Auct Anonym Vic. Ludou Pii rose in Arms against him and found means to engage into their party Pope Gregory IV. Ann. 832. who came in person to their Camp to favour their pretentions The Emperor on the other Hand accompanied with a great part of the Bishops of France failed not to advance with a Powerful Army in May the year following as far as Worms not far distant from the Camp of the Princes his Children Ut si more praedecessorum suorum aderat curâ—tontas necteret moras non sibi occurrendo Immediately he sent them some of his Bishops who exhorted them to return to their duty and who told the Pope in his name that if he was come according to the custom of his Predecessors he much wondered that he had so long delayed to come and wait upon him But when it was discovered that instead of keeping within the bounds of a bare Mediator for reconciling the Children to their Father so as it was believed he was come with a design to Excommunicate the Emperor and his Bishops if they obeyed not his Will and the Princes for whom he thereby manifestly declared himself against the Emperor Then these Bishops without being startled Nullo modo se velle voluntati ejas succumbere sed si Excommunicaturus adveniret Excommunicatus abiret cam aliter se babeas antiquorum Canonum autoritas made it known to him plainly that in that they would no ways obey him and that if he was come to Excommunicate them he should return Excommunicated himself seeing the Authority of the ancient Canons prescribes and ordains the quite contrary to what he attempts The truth is that expression seems to me a little too high but it cannot be denied but that it makes it clearly out to us that the Bishops of France would not at all suffer that the Pope should offer to enjoyn any thing concerning the Government of the State and the Temporal interests which were the Points that occasioned the War and besides that they were very well persuaded that Popes are Subject to the Holy Canons and by consequent to the Councils which have made them Moreover the great clashing that Philip the Fair had with Pope Boniface VIII who openly attacked the Rights of his Crown is very well known and it is also well known what the Gallican Church did for maintaining them and the cautions they took against the Bull unam Sanctam which raised the Popes in Temporals above all Sovereigns It is likewise known what decisions she gave Louis XII for the preservation of his Rights in the difference that he had with Julius II. and what the Clergy of France Assembled at Mante during the League Anno 1591. declared upon occasion of the Bull of Gregory XIV against Henry IV. To the Estates General at Paris 1614 1615. Now if Cardinal Duperron hath in his Speeches said something not altogether consistent with the Doctrin always maintained by the Clergy of France that is but the opinion of one private Doctor who hath oftener than once changed his sentiment and on that occasion transgressed the orders of the Ecclesiastical Chamber of the States General in name of whom he spake and who would have him only represent to the third Estate that it did not belong to them but to the Church to decide that Point of Doctrin concerning the Pontifical Power as it
seemed they had done in the first Article of their address That was the sole cause of the difference that was betwixt the two Chambers as that of the Clergy informed Pope Paul V. in the answer they made to his Brief of the last of January one thousand six hundred and fifteen Augebamur enim non mediocriter cum videremus ipses Catholicos zelo quodam minus prudenti abreptos cognitionem earum rerum quae ad fidem pertinent ad se trahere de quaestionibus ejusmodi statuere velle quas nisi pastorum suorum vocibus edocti non debeant attingere Sed ea molestia è vestigio in laetitiam versa est postquam iidem nostris monitis justis rationibus adducti demum agnoverunt omnem hanc autoritatem penes Ecclefiam eosque solos esse quos illa fidelium gregi preesse voluerit 7 Calend. Nartii We were not a little troubled say these Prelates to see even Catholicks transported with an undiscreet zeal offer to take cognisance of matters relating to Faith and to decide such kind of questions as they must needs first be instructed about by their Pastors before they can meddle with them But our grief was soon changed into gladness when these Gentlemen yielding to our Admonitions and just Remonstrances at length acknowledged that none but the Church hath that Authority and that none but the Pastors have from her received the Power and Right of instructing and guiding the Flock That was the thing in question and not at all the substance of the Article wherein the Clergy of France agreed though they judged it not a proper business to be proposed in the Estates especially at that time The truth is that Chamber of the Clergy was so far from invalidating in the least the substance of the Doctrin contained in that Article and in all times received in France concerning the absolute independence of our Kings as to Temporals that on the contrary they oftener than once protested that they acknowledged that independence Manifeste de ce qui se passa aux Estat Generaux entre le Clergi et le Tiers Estat 1615 and that it ought to be held for a Maxim That the King in Temporals can have no other Superiour but God alone Discours veritable de ce qui se passa aux Estats Generaux and that the Vicar of Jesus Christ hath no jurisdiction over matters purely Temporal So that although the Clergy declared that it belonged only to the Church to handle and decide a Point of Doctrin and Religion nay and that that was not an affair to be consulted about in the Estates Procés verbal de cequi s'est passé en la Chambre du Tiers Estat Avis donné au Roy en son Conseil par M. le Prince sur le Cahier du Tiers Estat yet they avowed that they believed in substance the same thing which the third Estate had proposed and which the late Prince of Conde a great Defender of the Catholick Faith most prudently represented to the King in Council the fourth of January the same year and which the University of Paris expressed in most significant terms in their Petition presented to the Estates upon the same occasion the two and twentieth of January To wit Discours veritable dece qui s'est passé c. That our Kings depend upon none but God us to Temporals and that there is no Power upon Earth that can depose them nor dispence with or absolve their Subjects from the Obedience and Allegiance that they owe to them under any pretext whatsoever That was their Doctrin which they would not have to be weakned or impaired in the Remonstrances which they had caused Cardinal Du Perron to make to the Chamber of the third Estate And certainly after so many proofs one cannot doubt of the Opinion of that learned Clergy always uniform as to that Point I might here produce a great many very convincing Testimonies but that would not be necessary now after that famous declaration which the Archbishops and Bishops assembled at Paris by order of the King in the year one thousand six hundred and eighty two as representing the Gallican Church have made of their Judgment concerning the Ecclesiastical Power This is the first Article of it whereby they declare That God hath given to St. Peter and his Successors the Vicars of Jesus Christ and to the Church Power over Spiritual matters which belong to Eternal Salvation but not over Civil and Temporal The Lord having said My Kingdom is not of this World and Render unto Cesar the things that are Cesars and unto God the things that are Gods And that Apostolical Decree ought to remain firm and inviolable Let every Soul be subject unto the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God The Powers that be are ordained of God whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God That Kings and Princes then according to the Ordinance of God are not subject to any Ecclesiastical Power and that they cannot be deposed neither directly nor indirectly by the Power and Authority of the Keys of the Church that their Subjects cannot be exempted from the obligation that lies upon them to obey them nor be absolved from the Oath of Allegiance which they have taken to them and that that Doctrin ought inviolably to be observed as not only necessary for the publick Peace but also useful to the Church And as being conform to the word of God the Tradition of the Fathers and the examples of Saints This now is a positive Doctrin that saith all and all that I have written upon this Subject hath only been to exhibit the convincing proofs of all the parts of that Article which contains so excellent and solid a Declaration As to the sacred Faculty of Theology it hath never failed on any occasion to evidence its zeal for the true Doctrin authorising and confirming this by its Decrees and Censures of the contrary opinion from time to time renewed especially in the years 1413. 1561. 1595. 1610. 1611. 1620. 1726. And lately in the condemnation of an ultramontanean Jacobin by renewing the censure of the Book of Santarelli This appears still in a stronger and more Authentick manner Non esse Doctrinam Facultatis quod sammus Pontifex aliquam in Temporalia Regis Christianissimi antoritatem habeat imo Facultatem semper obstitisse etiam iis qui indirectam tantum modo illam Authoritatem esse voluerunt by the six Propositions that were presented to the King in the year one thousand six hundred threescore and three in name of the Faculty By my Lord De Prefixe Archbishop of Paris Visitor of the Sorbonne Take here two of them which relate to that Article Esse Doctrinam Facultatem ejusdem quod Rex Christianissimus nullum omnino in temporalibus habet supersorem praeter Deum eamque esse suam antiquam Doctrinam à quâ nunquam
recessara sit The first That it is not the Doctrin of the Faculty that the Pope hath any Authority over the Temporal of the most Chrishian King that on the contrary it hath always opposed even those who would have that Authority only indirect The other That it is the Doctrin of the same Faculty that the most Christian King hath no other Superior in Temporal affairs but God alone and than that is the ancient Doctrin of the Faculty from which it will never swerve After all these Decrees of the Gallican Church and of the sacred Faculty have always been powerfully supported by the Edicts of the Kings and the thundring sentences of Parliament against all such as ever durst in France maintain and teach that pernicious Doctrin condemned by these Decisions and Censures Of 2 Decemb. 1561.4 Januar. 1594. 7 10 Jan. 1595. 27 May 26 Nov. 1610. 27 July 1614. 2 Jan. 1615. c. which in this Kingdom are reverenced as proceeding from God upon whose word they are grounded So that a Doctrin so well established and which all France look upon as the chief foundation of our Liberties can never be shaken much less overturned by Novelty which whatsoever effort it may make shall never amongst us prevail against Antiquity to which we will always stick close as to the Principle and solid Foundation of true Tradition And therefore also it is that the King as Protector of the Canons of the Councils received in France and of the Gallican Church in particular by his perpetual Edict registred in all the Parliaments not only prohibits all his Subjects and all strangers within his Kingdom to teach or write any thing contrary to the Doctrin contained in the Declaration of the Clergy of France but also commands all secular and regular Professors to submit to and teach it Wherein it is most evident that his Majesty does no more but what many Generals of Orders do who for preserving the uniformity of Doctrin in their Congregation as to Points which they look upon to be of great importance for the good and reputation of their Body oblige their inferiours to maintain and teach certain Opinions which the whole Order hath adopted against others who dispute them Much more ought it to be lawful for so great a King so zealous for Religion and for the Ancient Doctrin upon which are founded the inviolable rights of one of the most August Crowns of Christendom and liberties of the Gallican Church to oblige his Subjects for preservation of Uniformity of Opinion within his Kingdom as to Points of that importance to maintain and teach the Doctrin of the Clergy of France in all things conform to that of the Ancient Church And so much I had to say in this Treatise wherein always following that Principle which both Catholicks and Protestants equally agree to I have held a mean betwixt the two extremes that ought to be shunned One is of those who blinded by the hatred which they have conceived against the Church of Rome from which they have separated would take from the Pope the Prerogatives which Antiquity hath believed were given him by Jesus Christ as Successor of St. Peter The other of those who through a zeal not according to knowledg nay and if I dare say with those Cardinals of Paul III. through a too great compliance with Popes attribute to them what Antiquity instructing us by the Fathers the Councils and even by the most Ancient and most holy Popes themselves have believed they never have received from Jesus Christ Seeing the mean is the place of Virtue and Truth I think one cannot mistake the way when he follows Antiquity for his guide which placing us with it self in that lovely mean will make us condemn our Protestants who are in the first extreme and abandon those who abandon themselves to novelty under the conduct whereof they are fallen into the other extremity Now if it be said to me that these new Authors who have fallen into that which I call the second extreme have only done so out of the great zeal which they have for Religion It will be easie for me to answer with the great Pope St. Leo That many times Men carry on their private interests under a specious pretext of Piety Privatae causae pietatis aguntur obtentu câ—piditatum quisque suarum Religionem habet velut pedissequam St. Leo Epist 25. ad Theodos Imper. and that every one maketh Religion to be the handmaid of his lusts and desires The truth is it may very well be that the lustre of the Purple wherewith at Rome the three Authors who have most highly exalted the Power of Popes by raising it beyond all the bounds that Antiquity prescribed to it were cloathed may have dazled the Eyes of that croud of Modern who have followed them and who for all that what ever they may have expected never received a like reward But not to Judge of the secret motives of their Heart which it belongs to God alone to dive into I had rather Answer with Vincentius Lirinensis one of the most zealous Defenders of the true Doctrin Mos iste semper in Ecclesiâ viguit ut quo quisque religiosior foret Vincent Lerin l. 1. Commonit c. 3. eo promptius novellis adventionibus contrairet It hath always been the custom in the Church that the more of Piety and Religion any one had the more ready he was to oppose all new inventions in Doctrin And to conclude my Work with the excellent words of the same Author I should be glad that Men would think that in composing it I have had no other design but to discharge the duty of a good Catholick by doing what he enjoyns me when he says Christianus Catholicus providebit ut Antiquitati inhaereat quae prorsus non potest ab ulla Novitatis fraude seduci The Catholick Christian will have great care to stick close to Antiquity which cannot be deceived by the artifice of Novelty FINIS Books Printed for and sold by Joseph Hindmarsh at the Black Bull in Cornhill over against the Royal Exchange THE famous History of Auristella Translated from the Spanish The whole Art of Converse Cicero's three Books touching the Nature of the Gods done into English A Breviary of the Roman History written in Latin by Eutropius Translated into English by several young Gentlemen privately Educated in Hatton-Garden The Countermine by Dr. Nalson History of Count Zosimus done into English Love Letters between a Noble Man and his Sister The Doctors Physitian or Dialogues concerning Health Translated out of French The Prerogative of Primogeniture by David Tenner B. D. Navigation rectified by Peter Blackborough The Works of Mr. John Oldham together with his Remains A Discourse of Monarchy as it Relates to the Succession of his Royal Highness James D. of York Seneca's Morals by way of Abstract by Mr. Lestrange Beaufions or a new discovery of Treason in an Answer to the Protestant Reconciler Familiar Epistles of Col. Hen. Martin The Rampant Alderman a Farce Dame Dobson or the Cunning Woman a Comedy Jovial Crew or Merry Beggar a Comedy Venice preserved a Tragedy Sir Hercules Buffoon a Comedy The disappointment a Play An Essay upon Poetry Choice new Songs never before Printed by Tho. Dirfey Gent. The Malecontent being the sequel of the progress of Honesty Vivat Rex a Sermon Preach'd at Bristol on the 9th of Septemb. 1683. by Mr. Kingston The History of the Civil Wars of France Written in Italian by H.C. D'Avila Translated out of the Original The Second Impression whereunto is added a Table FINIS
Council And therefore to remove all ambiguity and to prevent the wresting of these words to a sense contrary to the Superiority of a Council they said that instead of Regendi Ecclesiam universalem it ought to be put into the Canon Potestatem regendi omnes fideles omnes Ecclesias that the Pope hath the Power of Governing all Believers and all Churches which is to be understood of all not Assembled in Council but taken severally and in particular none of them being exempted from the Jurisdiction of the Pope in what relates to the publick good the general Government and the cases limited by the Canons So careful even to a scruple have our Ancestors been to stand upon their guard on that side that no attack in the least might be made against the ancient Doctrin always inviolably observed in this Kingdom And it is most remarkable that at that time when the Doctors of Paris most strenuously maintained that Doctrin after the Councils of Constance and Basil against those that strove to invalidate their Decrees Innoc. VIII Litter ad Theol. Paris 7. iâ— Sept. Ann. 1486. Innocent VIII sent them a Brief wherein he makes their Elogy and amongst other things magnifies the greatness of their zeal which they expressed for maintaining the honour and rights of the Holy Roman Church and for defending the Catholick faith against the Heresies which they incessantly confuted After all that I may end where I began to handle this question I shall conclude with the testimony of another Pope whom the Authors who will have it as M. Schelstrate will that Popes are above Councils can never reject And that is Pius II. who when he was no more but Aeneas Sylvius Picolomini Clerk to the Council of Basil whereof he hath given us the History maintained with all his might as well as the Doctors of Paris that the Authority of a General Council is Superior to that of a Pope But when he himself was promoted to be Pope he thought for a reason that may easily be guessed at that he ought to make known to the World that he had changed his Opinion and that then he thought the quite contrary of what before he had maintained with all the heat that a Man ought to have who is well persuaded of the Justice of the Cause whereof he undertakes the defence And that he solemnly did by a Bull wherein he retracts and in that Recantation that he might declare that he followed another Opinion he would not stiffle the manifest truth concerning the nature of the Opinion which he forsook and of the other that he embraced For in this manner he speaks in his Bull hinting at the Conferences and Disputes that were had with Juliano Cesarini Cardinal of St. Angelo who stood up for the interest of the Pope as much as he could and yet for all that agreed in Judgment with the Council wherein he presided Tuebamur antiqaam seutentiam i le novam defendebat Extollebamus generalis concilii autoritatem ille Apostolicae sedis potestatem magnopere commendabat He defended says that Pope the Ancicient Doctrin and he took the part of the new We extolled the Authority of the Vniversal Council and he magnified extreamly the Power of the Apostolick See This now is plain dealing Pius II. in Bull. retract That Pope who was willing to change his Opinion with his condition which after him Adrian VI. did not declares fairly and honestly in his Bull that the Doctrin whereof he had formerly undertaken the Defence concerning the Superiority of a Council is the Doctrin of Antiquity and that the other is new And that is all I would be at I need no more to gain my cause For all that I have pretended to in this Treatise is to shew what Antiquity hath believed concerning the Points in hand So that after so authentick a Declaration of Pope Pius II. I have ground to say as to this Article what I have already oftener than once said in relation of the others with Pope Celestin I. writing to the Bishops of the Gallican Church Desinat incessere novitas vetustarem CHAP. XXVI The state of the question touching the Power that some Doctors have attributed to Popes over the Temporal I Have if I mistake not made it clearly appear in all the preceding Chapters of this Treatise how far the Ancient Church hath believed that the Power over Spirituals which Jesus Christ gave to St. Peter and his Successors as Heads of the Universal Church extended I am now to shew whether according to the Judgment of venerable Antiquity they have also any Power over the Temporal of any person whatsoever and especially of Kings and other Sovereigns by virtue of the primacy that by Divine right belongs to them Heretofore there have been some so passionately concerned for the Grandieur of the Apostolical See or rather so blindly devoted to the Court of Rome that differs much from the Holy See that they have dared to publish that the Pope representing the person of Jesus Christ who is King of Kings Lord of Lords and Universal Monarch who hath an absolute Power over all Kingdoms from which he may even depose Kings if they fail in their duty as these Kings may turn off their Officers who behave not themselves as they should And this is called the direct Power which Boniface VIII thought fit to take to himself in his Tuae unam Sanctam that his Successor Clement V. was obliged to recal That is not the question here For I cannot think that now a days there is any Man who hath the boldness to maintain so palpable and odious a falshood But there are a great many beyond the Alps who by the Philosophical distinction of an indirect Power which they have invented teach that the Pope may dispose of Temporals depose Kings absolve Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance that they have taken to them and transfer their Dominions to others when he judges it to be necessary for the good of Religion because say they since he hath the inspection over every thing that concerns it so hath he Power to remove destroy and exterminate every thing that may annoy the same and by that clinch they cunningly enough come home to their Point though they would seem to forsake it For a Pope will always take the pretext of the welfair of Religion when he has a mind to undo a Prince as all these Popes have done who after Gregory VII deposed Emperors and since them Julius II. who transferred the Kingdom of John King of Navarre to Ferdinand King of Arragon because that King would not declare against Louis XII whom this Pope persecuted Now seeing that Opinion which the Gallican Church and all our Doctors have always reckoned very dangerous and inconsistent with publick tranquillity hath still vouchers amongst some Modern Doctors especially beyond the Alps I must now make it appear according to the method which I have
followed in this Treatise what the Doctrin of Antiquity is as to that and that the Ancients have always believed that neither the Pope nay nor the Church have received any Power from Jesus Christ but only over things meerly Spiritual and wholly distinct from Temporals that therefore Kings and Sovereign Princes according to the appointment of God are not Subject as to Temporals either directly or indirectly to any Ecclesiastical Power as depending upon God alone who hath established them And that they cannot be Deposed upon any Pretext whatsoever by the Authority of the Church nor their Subjects absolved from the Oath of Allegiance and Obedience that they owe them This I shall briefly and solidly prove by matters of fact which cannot be denied CHAP. XXVII What Jesus Christ and his Apostles have Taught us as to that THERE is nothing in the Church of God more Ancient than Jesus Christ and his Apostles Now they are the first that have Taught us that the Church and the Popes have nothing at all to do with Temporal affairs I shall make no long Discourses here for proving of that truth which is so conspicuous at first glance that we need no more but Eyes to read the words that express it without any necessity of a Commentary to explain them Don't we read in the Gospel that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ John 17. and by consequent of his Church and his Vicar upon Earth is not of this World Matth. 22. That we must render to Cesar the things that are Cesars and to God the things that are Gods That afterward Jesus Christ submits himself and his Vicar also to the Emperor by commanding St. Peter to pay the Tribute that was due to him for them both That he takes not the Crown from Herod Matth. 17. who did what he could to rob him of life which hath given occasion to the Church in one of her Hymns to say Non eripit Mortalia quia Regna dat Coelestia He deprives not Kings of their Temporal Kingdoms since he came into the World to give us the Kingdom of Heaven John 6. Is it not clear that he fled into the Desart when they talked of making him a King Luke 12. Who would not so much as judg of a difference betwixt two Brothers concerning their Succession And that he positively told his Apostles oftner than once that he would by no means have them like the Kings of the Gentiles who bear rule over their Subjects Matth. 20. Mark 10. Luke 22. and far less have any Dominion or Jurisdicton over Kings May not we see in the Epistles of the Apostles an express command given to all sorts of Men without exception Every Soul Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. to be Subject to Sovereign Powers That the Powers that are are ordained of God That whosoever resists them resists the Ordinance of God and draweth upon himself Eternal damnation 1 Pet. 2. That all without exception must be subject to their King for so is the will of God and that we must needs be subject not only for Wrath but for Conscience sake Rom. 13. This shews the falsity of the distinction of Buchanan and of his impious followers Buch. I. De Jure Regni apud Scotos who to answer those that objected to them the express command of God made to us in Scripture of obeying our Princes whoever they be and the example of Primitive Christians who according to the Law of God were always Loyal to the Emperors tho Pagans Persecutors and Enemies of their Religion have had the boldness to say that that was only fit in the first Plantation of the Church when Christians were too weak to take up Arms against Princes and to shake off their yoke They are to know that it was for fear of offending God and of bringing upon themselves Eternal damnation that they were Subject and Loyal to the Emperors and not for fear of their wrath and of the punishments which with so much courage they slighted when it was put to them to go to Martyrdom or to deny the Faith Buchanan ought at least to have read the fourscore and seventh Chapter of the Apology of Tertullian that he might have learnt this truth from that great Man that it was only to obey the command of Jesus Christ and of his Apostles that the Christians of his time were Loyal to their Princes and not at all because of their weakness and inability of acting and of rising in Arms against them to deliver themselves from their cruel and tyrannical Government If we would saies he Si hostes exertos non tantum vindices occultos agere vellemus deesset nobis vis numerorum copiarum vestra omnia implevimus urbes insulas castella castra ipsa c. sola vobis relinquimus Templa cui Bello non idonei non prompti fuissemus etiam impares copiis qui tam libenter trucidamur si non apud istam disciplinam mâ—gis occidi liceret quam occidere revolt by openly declaring our selves your Enemies could we want Forces and a great number of good Troops we who fill your Towns your Isles your Forts your Camps your Armies in a word all but your Temples And though we were not equal in number yet what is it we might not undertake and with what courage and zeal could not we fight you we who suffer our selves to be inhumanly put to death with so much Joy if we had not learnt in the School of Christ that we had better suffer our selves to be Massacred than to kill Men in Rebellion and in waging War against our Princes who persecute us It was not then propter iram but propter conscientiam to satisfie their Conscience and obey the Law of God that these Primitive Christians inviolably kept their Allegiance which they owed to their Emperors though they were infidels and wicked This is it which we have plainly declared to us in the Gospel and in the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Paul Whereupon the true Divines who in their Discourses are not conducted by the bare light of Human Philosophy which many times degenerates into Sophistry but by the Principles of Scripture that cannot deceive have in all times made this truly Theological Argument to which no Philosophical subtlety can be objected It is most evident by these clear and express passages of Scripture that Kings are ordained of God and that the Allegiance and Obedience that Subjects owe to them is of Divine Right Now neither Popes nor the Church can destroy and overthrow what God hath fixed nor dispence with that which is of Divine Right as manifestly appears in what concerns the essential parts of the Sacraments as for instance of Marriage of which it is said Quod Deus conjunxit homo non separet Therefore neither Popes nor Councils can ever depose Kings nor acquit their Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance And this is the more convincing