Britain or by some other fetch It would undoubtedly run the fate of its Neighbour Kingdoms and it is not a pin matter for a Title to that which must come in at last and when it comes will bring Title enough with it Nature and Necessity make perhaps as good Titles as Law and I know not whether the Law have any better then possession If the Pope get once possession as when he has got England and Ireland I see not what can keep him from it 't wil be to no more purpose to be sollicitous for a Title then for a man to look after a horse who is at his journies end For Titles serve but to obtain or hold what they pretend to which he that has already and so that it cannot be taken away no longer needs them But if the worst come to the worst why may not the Pope dispense with a Title as well as other things altogether as hard and not altogether so advantagious Plenitude of power set once on the tenter-hooks I believe will stretch as far as that and what cannot he do Who can do all which is necessary for the good of the Church and who is alone to determine what is necessary Who shall hinder him from calling the Bunch a Horn if he please But these are no jesting matters Baron ad an 1135. n. 21. 1173. n. 10. 1159. n. 21. England and Ireland have both been challenged and that before King John was born though his resignation be in truth the most specious matter which can be alledged Scotland to put it out of doubt what would become of it has been actually claim'd as well as the rest So that our Soveraign enjoys not one foot of land free from dispute Ep. Bonif 8. ad Edw. 1. ap Mat. West ad an 1301 It is to much purpose to dispute of Divine Right when if there were no such thing in the world we have as much to fear from Human. The worst Divine Right can do is to make us dependent and subject and this they say we are without relation to it And 't is this we fear not caring much how the mischief happens if it cannot be avoided It imports not much whether I be a slave by the misfortune of War or Birth if I must tug at the Oar. I tell you truly thinking of these things has put me into a very bad humour I distrust every thing and am not satisfy'd where learneder men than my self are I would be glad to have some better security than Prescription pag. 19. for though our Author say and I think it a sufficient Plea I doubt if you were Judges his Authority would hardly keep us from being cast Nay I am sure it would not for he confesses the Pope allows it not and his Judgment would overrule it at last Besides though He slip over the business of Hen. 2. the Vatican Register and Petrus Blesensis me thinks make too much noyse to be slighted What we think considerable may perhaps not prove so when it comes to the Test and however no caution against you is too much Again why may not Constantins Donation one day rise up in Judgment against us Britain was at that time one of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire Omnes Italiae seu Occidentalium Regionum Provincias c. and if this Deed be valid undoubtedly past with the rest I know well enough there are among you who make bold with this evidence and refuse to admit it for Authentick But there are too who stand stifly for it and among these several Popes Were there any likelyhood it would bring Grist to the Mil I do not think the Palea set before it would hinder it from passing for good Wheat Cap. Constantinus Dist 96. In fine while Human Right not only may but actually is pretended at this day we have reason to look about us The Lovain Divines if the History of the Irish Remonstrance say true Hist of the Irish Remonst p. 117. made it one of their four chief grounds and the only ground of Right for condemning that Remonstrance and since they declare not in particular whence they deriv'd the pretence of Human Right make it necessary we should be secured against all You see where the Shoe pinches make it easy if you can though when you have done your uttermost I fear 't will pinch still For you are but a single man and what a single man can do is not considerable Besides you conceal your self conscious it seems of being disowned by your fellows who if they be otherwise perswaded what will your single honesty do us good A Traytor or two in a Nation can do no great harm and one or two honest men as little good As you carry matters you seem to confess the generality is not of your mind Nay how do I know that so much as single you are as honest as you pretend and truly mean as you say You may with the liberty allowed in your Church Prevaricate for ought I know even though you should renounce Prevarication or you may according to your comfortable doctrine of Extrinsick Probability embrace to morrow what you reject to day You are questionless much beholding to your Church which with her infallible guidance has brought you to that pass that if there be an honest man among you He cannot make out that he is so but must thank the good nature and Charity of his Neighbours for what reputation he has I must confess I am sorry for the severities which are falling on you but yet my pity does not so far blind my Reason but that I see they cannot complain of being treated like knaves who cannot produce any satisfactory evidence that they are otherwise and though they could are too few to be taken notice of For the eye of all Laws looks only on Generals and 't is not possible that every man in a nation should have a particular Law made for him Pray excuse me if I press too hard and seem to add to your troubles which I am so far from desiring to increase that I would ease it if I could For truly notwithstanding what I have said I make no question but you are a very honest man and take it upon your word that there are more as honest as your self And I declare freely that I concur with the judgment of those * and if they would perform that common duty it is very probable that there appearing no more danger to threaten the Estate from them than from other men those Laws which the iniquity of their fore-fathers brought upon them by their conspiracies and Treasons may be suspended towards their Innocent Children until such time as their peaceable demeanour and good carriage shall make it appear just to be abolished Animadvers upon Fanaticism Fanatically imputed by a Person of Honour p. 261. These things I yield to be reasonable 1. That where there is a real
by Election or succession or Force came to be Emperors I mean till the Empire was translated to the West for as he had a great hand in that translation he has ever since appeared more but I speak of the times before And all this is evident beyond all dispute Reconcile this who can with Constantins Donation If he put the Pope in possession of the Western Provinces how could he bequeath them to his Son And if he put him not in possession how could he be said to give them It is a mockery not a gift to say these Provinces are yours which I keep to my self during life and dispose to others after my death Livery and Seisin are pretty material circumstances in such conveyances where nothing can be understood to pass without them If Constantine gave them the Pope must have had them and that he had them not is as plain as History can make any thing where it is particularly with uniform consent recorded in whose hands these Western Provinces were what changes hapned from time to time and by what means from the death of Constantine till the Arms and favour of France under Pipin and his son Charles put into the Popes possession most of what he has It is known and by Bellarmine himself confest that Popes during those times were Subjects at least de facto which is enough for our present purpose there needing no more to shew they had not those Countries which Constantine is said to have given to them Not but that both he and divers others after and before him too were extreamly munificent to the Church by which munificence much Land in several places was setled on her by way of Alms and actually in her possession But she enjoy'd the revenues only of those Lands Administration of Justice and all Regalities were reserv'd to the Temporal Lords This has deceiv'd some who finding mention of Possessions belonging to the Church in former Ages imagined they so belonged to her then as they do now with entire and independent subjection Whereas till Popes were by the liberality and power of the French rais'd to the state of Temporal Princes the Lands of the Church were in the same condition with the estates of other Subjects the immediate owners receiving the Profits and both their Lands and Themselves subject to the supreme Lord. They were given to other Churches as well as Rome for maintenance of the Clergy and Poor for the expences of buildings and reparations and Divine Service and that so plentifully that some refused offered Patrimonies others restored what they once had not willing to be burthened with more than was needful These Lands paid publick duties as other Lands did till the Laws exempted them But these things are besides the matter To return to our Argument if the successors of Constantin continued the only known Masters of those very Countries which are said to be given away if Popes acknowledg'd them for such as well as the rest of the World and never so much as put in any claim or pretended any thing to the contrary And all this be so plain that nothing can be plainer no fiction can be more palpable nor more wild than this of Constantin's Donation It is undeniably evident that neither Popes nor Emperours nor any body else in those dayes knew any thing of it And it is as evident that they must know of it if it had been at all At least if they did not none else could in after times This Donation was not heard of in the World till long after Baron ad an 1191. n. 52. Marca de Conc. Sacerd. Imp. l. 3. c. 12. Baronius thinks the pretended Charter forged by the Grecians after the tenth Age Marca by the Latins in the time of Pipin and by his consent to stop the mouths of the Grecians who made instance that the Lands recovered from the Lombards and by Him given to the Church should be restored to the Empire However it be for the Time or Author of the fiction that the Charter is a meer and late forgery is acknowledged both by Baronius and by most of the learned men even of the Popes Communion That the Donation cannot be pretended with any shew of Reason but in force of the Charter is plain For 't is next to madness to say the West was given and produce no Evidence of the Gift Any man may claim any mans Estate with as much colour and the Pope from such a claim can expect no more success than another man But there is nothing which can be alledged in proof of this Donation besides this Charter Wherefore the whole business of which you seem to be jealous is in it self a pure Chimera absolutely contradicted by the course of Nature and consent of History and the only Evidence producible for it acknowledged a forgery by our selves And if this give you much disquiet I cannot but think you wonderful fearful Let the worst come to the worst 't is not the case of England alone France and Spain and Germany were Western Provinces as well as Britain and as much concern'd as we While we have such Outworks we need not much fear our Fort. The truth is our safety depends in reality on them For let his Right be never so good till it have seiz'd on them it cannot fasten on us and when it has we cannot escape let it be never so bad Mean time I think you may sleep quietly on the noise which will be made in the World when any of these Countries leave their native Princes and become subject to a Forreigner and quit their long setled Customs and Laws and Liberties in reverence to Constantin's Donation will wake you time enough But if you sleep till then you will go near to be the 8th sleeper and alone out-slumber all the seven Thus far of our Journey we have good company with us and the best part of Christendom being of the Caravan travel with security enough But now the Road parts and we must shift for our selves Henry II. say you from Baronius acknowledged the Kingdom of England Fendatory to the Pope in a Letter extant in Petrus Blesensis You might have added the Cardinals Comment upon the Popes confirmation or rather approbation of K. Stephen's election which he says was therefore mentioned in the Coronation Oath because the Kingdom was feudatory to the Pope Baron ad an 1135. 21. so that every new King receiv'd confirmation from him Which also was acknowledged by Hen. II. in the Letter of Blesensis Ad an 1172. n. 5. Besides he produces afterwards from the Acts of Alexander III. a clause of the Oath made at the conclusion of the difference upon the death of S. Thomas of Canterbury wherein the Kings both Father and Son are made to swear That they will receive and hold the Kingdom of England from the Pope and neither they nor their successors repute themselves Kings of England till the Popes for
say that whatever out of the strength of his wit He alledges on the other side yet this Charter is no more valid in his judgment than in other folks And I do not mean that 't is become now invalid by the force of Prescription for this he has sufficiently declared but that it was originally and always invalid Truly I am mistaken if this may not be concluded from what he says elsewhere when dis-engaged from the desire of making good his Argument he frankly discovers his true sentiments Pag. 239. considering an observation made in a former Letter on the particular Fact of the Emperour Frederick he replies That whether supreme Princes may put it into a Forreigners power to compel them to cession by a direct deprivation of their Right of Government is a case which he thinks none will easily grant to be either Just or Secure for the Common-wealth for which they were concern'd I conceive that when K. John resign'd his Kingdom and receiv'd it again to hold of the Pope as principal Lord to whom he became a Vassal He put it into the power of a Forreigner to compel him not only by Ecclesiastical Censures but by a direct deprivation of his Right of Government And this he declares to be Unjust and Unsafe for the Commonwealth King John then even in his own opinion did unjustly and against the good of the Commonwealth that is had not Right to do what he did and his Act was invalid from the beginning I suppose therefore He will acknowledg on second thoughts that there are other ways to bound the actions of supreme Princes besides Compacts and Concessions and that Justice and the Safety of the Commonwealth are two of those ways in which other Princes were obliged to walk as well as K. John and if they did not their Actions are not to be drawn into example I will hope the Question is resolved to satisfaction For I know no fairer nor surer way to end a difference than to put it to Judgment And since 't is judged on my side by an Authority from which there lyes no appeal and by those who one would expect should be most partial on the other Those who contriv'd the Deed and Him who urges it Of the Popes Temporal Monarchy I should think there is no more to be desir'd If any mans curiosity reach further he may find wherewith to satisfie it in those who have already handled this Subject particularly the learned Crakanthrop But to touch briefly what is more largely treated elsewhere the Charter contradicts and destroys it self reserving in one place what it grants in another There is in it an express saving of the Rights given away by this clause Salvis nobis Haeredibus nostris Justitiis Libertatibus Regalibus nostris Nothing can be more manifest than that the Independency of the Crown belongs to the Regalia and again that subjection is opposite to Liberty And yet the Regalia and Liberty are expresly reserv'd at the same time when the Crown is made Dependent and Subject This is just I give you a hundred pound which hundred pound I keep to my self Which is an unvalid and self-destructive Act and passes nothing and is in truth a piece of Non-sence not a Gift Again that the Regalia Imperii are Inalienabilia without consent of the Subjects is a point setled by a consent so unanimous of all Nations that there is no Maxim more known 'T is very troublesome and more idle to fill paper with Quotations for a point better known than the Author to be quoted This too is a receiv'd Maxim that Metus cadens in virum constantem nuls the Act extorted by fear of which besides a hundred examples in all nations some even of Popes themselves who upon that ground have voided their own Acts the Pope to whom this Grant was made has left a very pregnant instance in the case of this very King The Barons a little after obtained the Magna Charta from him confirmed by all the security they could devise The Pope solemnly declares all proceedings void because extorted by fear But it is most evident that K. John had no greater cause of fear when he past the Magna Charta than he had when he signed the Charter to the Pope Pandulph brought him to it by exaggerating his imminent danger the French with a vast Army ready to land backt with the Ecclesiastical power of the Clergy and Arms of the Laity whereof many of the principal were said to have oblig'd themselves by authentick Charters to assist the French The King yielded confusus valde mente nimis perturbatus videns undique sibi periculum imminere in the words of M. Paris Could there be more fear from the Barons alone than from the same Barons and French and Pope too Or could his fear in one case make his Act void and signify nothing in the other So that there is this very good reason to believe that the Pope himself to whom the Kingdom was granted judged the Grant nul because he declared an Act of the same King nul by a less fear than that which extorted his Grant This too was understood by those who drew the Charter and inserted this other clause Non vi inducti nec Timore coacti sed nostra bona spontaneaque voluntate By which it is apparent that there was more than one clause contrary to Truth and that more was requisite to the validity of the Act even in the judgment of the Contrivers than could be had Which is that the Act was invalid as wanting what themselves thought necessary to make it valid By this and much more alledged by divers the Nullity of that Grant of K. John appears I think very undeniably supposing in him all the Right which can be supposed in any King of England But by our Authors favour what he takes for granted that K. John had undoubted Kight to the Crown at the passing of this act is very far from undoubted A Sister of Arthur's was then living and long after in whom the Right of Arthur could not but be When K. John by his success at Mirabel got Arthur into his hands he made use of the opportunity of his victory to seize likewise upon his Sister Elianor whom he brought into England and confin'd to Bristol Castle There was another and I think an elder Sister but what became of her I know not In likelyhood she died before these times But this Lady surviv'd her Uncle The Pope mentions her among those who had right to the Crown to the Embassadors of Lewis M. Paris ad an 1216. who sought to justify their Masters title to England and the French objected against her what if it have any force in their Law has none in ours For it is a plain case that the elder line takes place of the younger in the inheritance of the Crown and no act or forfeiture of K. John could bar the right of
and men of several qualities The same person is both a man and a Rich and Proud man a Powerful and an Angry man and we see Wit and Ambition Goodness and Ignorance Learning and Fantasticalness often coupled together and a hundred several mixtures of several qualities united all in one material Man Now consider what fine work there would quickly be if every one of these useless formalities as you call them must be chargeable with all actions if Riches must be taken away because the Rich Proud man has scorn'd and Power because the Powerful Angry man has wronged his Neighbour if Wit must bear the blame of Ambition and Goodnesâ— the miscarriages of Ignorance and Learning the Errors of Fantasticalness Reason is our very Nature and yet I think there are few to whom Nature has not given Logick enough to see that we do not always act as reasonable and who are not learned enough to separate the Animal from the Man To speak yet plainer a severe Father a harsh Master do they not sometimes use their Children and Scholars unreasonably and so as utterly to spoil them A corrupt Judge does he not pervert Justice and render those Tribunals from whence men expect the relief of Injuries the seats of Oppression What then Must the Father and the Master and the Judge be condemned for the faults of the Man and none of these powers left in the world because they have been and daily are abused I think you and every body will confess that this were unreasonable and yet your Argument spares none of them For 't is all one to Children and Pleaders if they be materially opprest and misus'd whether this be done by the fault of the Office or the Officer and small comfort it is to tell them that their Judges and Masters acted in their case as passionate men not as Judges and Masters for they remain opprest still and the formality relieves them not Kings themselves are men too and not exempt from the failings of Mortality Our Country indeed has this amongst other things to thank God for that she has been extraordinarily blest with good Kings but History affords examples of such elsewhere as have been unjust and cruel and tyrannical And if you will not allow the King and his sacred Function to be free from the aspersions to which the Man is sometimes liable let me tell you Friend your Doctrine will be more dangerous and more inconsistent with Government than the Papal pretensions Now as in all these cases and a hundred more which happen every day and every where Nature teaches us to examine the formality from whence the mischief proceeds and endeavour to provide against that and let the rest alone so I think it ought to be in the case of the Church We condemn not Learning because some learned men are fantastical nor Riches for the pride of rich men why must the Church be condemned for the fault of Church-men Authority and Goodness and Wit are not blemisht by the errors of those who have them the Power of Fathers and Masters and Judges is and must be preserved in the world however Severity and Covetise daily abuse it and if this be so in all the rest of the world can you think it reasonable the Church alone should be exempted from the general rule and be more answerable for the faults of those who live in her communion than Authority for the faults of bad men in Authority The faults indeed should be taken away but the Church let alone And truly had your Reformation as you call it gone no farther than to retrench abuses such as these you mention and who knows but there may be other I might peradventure have call'd it so too But instead of abuses to take away Office and all and defie the supreme Pastor of the Church and alter the whole face of Religion there by your favour you reformed a little too far For the same Logic which makes the Church responsible for the errors of Church-men makes the Office responsible for the faults of the Officer and that is to take all Offices out of the world where men will be men and liable to be reduced from the path of vertue in spight of all preventions possible in such a nature as ours I hope by this time that distinction does not appear so airy and useless as you imagined you shall permit me to add that possibly you are no less concern'd in it than We. For we are not the only men amongst whom Principles inconsistent with Government may be found Remember who they were that ruin'd England by the late War and were guilty of things which to dilate were as unsavoury as needless They were so far from Popery these men that fear of Popery was a chief Engine employed in the mischief Sad fate by the way and preposterous wisdom to destroy our selves for fear of being destroyed and run into Fire and the Sword for fear of Ink and Paper Neither is England the only example Scotland and the Netherlands and Germany and France have felt lamentable effects from the Doctrines of men who would take it for an imputation to have learnt any thing of the Pope So that it is very plain that the Papal is neither the only nor the only dangerous King-deposing power in the world 'T is as plain that these men are neither Infidels nor of our Church so that you must even exercise your Pity too and take them into yours Or if pity will not prevail I hope at least you will take care so to defend your Allegiance a not to overthrow your Church And unless you make your Creed consist but of Eleven Articles I see not how you can disown the Communion of these men for 't will be a strange Catholic Church which communicates neither with the Church of Rome nor her Adversaries Wherefore if your Argument be good and Religion must answer for the faults of those who profess it there is no remedy but Princes to be secure must banish all Religion and People turn Atheists to be honest men and good Subjects Now whatever answer you would give to one who should charge such wicked principles upon your Church because they are maintained by numerous and learned and famous men amongst you the same I give for mine I believe for all your Pique to formalities you would go near to distinguish your Church or Believing men from the Erring men and say you communicate with the Men but not with the Errors So you shall permit me to say for mine and this farther that whatever you say you must of necessity either condemn your selves or absolve us 'T is not that the force of your Argument drives me to that way of answer which I have chosen it being easie to shew the Churches innocence even in your own way and without the help of your disliked formalities Your Argument in short is this Learned men in the Church hold wicked Doctrines therefore the Church