in several Nations of Christendom and confirmed afterward in divers National Councils And after his death was confirmed by the three Popes that succeeded him during that King's life And the Catholick Subjects of that King obeyed it and such as denied the Pope's Jurisdiction to depose the King were by the Catholicks called Hereticks and Schismaticks and had the name of Henriciani Yea even the King himself in his Letter to the Pope wherein he complained of the Sentence denied not the Pope's Jurisdiction to depose him if he had been an Heretick but pleaded he was no Heretick in which case alone the tradition of holy Fathers as he said allowed the Deposition of Kings by the Pope Nay and even that Cardinal Villain Beno Ring-leader of the Schismaticks in that Libell against the Pope wherein he raked together all the matters he could to make him odious and particularly accused his deposing the King yet accused it not for being done without Jurisdiction but onely that he did it contra ordinem juris Finally in a Diet of the Empire called on purpose to decide by the Canons of the Church which had the juster cause the Pope or the King where met the wisest of the Princes and Prelates of the German nation of both parties the Archbishop of Saltzburg Prolocutor of the Pope's party alledged and shewed by the Canons that the Deposition was just To which was answered by the Archbishop of Mentz Prolocutor of the King's party that the Pope and Princes had done the King injury in that he being at Rome performing his penance injoyn'd him by the Pope they had set up another King Rodulph against him And he added that by the Canons the King being spoliatus could not be condemned or cited till he were restored to possession So here was no plea then against the Pope's Jurisdiction no not by the King 's own Advocates 3. The same holy Pope did not onely believe and suppose this Doctrine to be most certainly true and sound as he shewed by his practice of it but did formally teach it to the Church by Canons published in a Patriarchal Council at Rome and to the German Prelates that consulted him of it and prove it to them from Scripture and Tradition and by S. Peter's authority exhorted and required all Subjects of the Empire to obey and execute the Sentence by resisting the deposed King putting them in mind that it is a sin as bad as Idolatry to disobey S. Peter's See and termed it no less then wicked and damnable folly and madness to deny that Power to be in the Pope 4. In Anno 1215. the Council of Lateran an undoubted General Council and the greatest for number of Prelates that ever was settled a Rule to be observed in the deposing of Princes and absolving their Subjects from their Allegeance in case they be negligent in purging their Land from Hereticks And the Canon was made in the presence and with the consent of both the Emperours Greek and Roman and the greatest part of the Kings and Princes of Christendome and of the Embassadours of the rest Answ. 1. Those that goe under the name of the Canons of this Council were not decreed by the Council but onely published for Canons of it by Gregory IX Repl. It is against reason to imagine that Holy and Learned Pope would commit so gross a forgery and in matters of that high concern and at a time so soon after the Council as the greatest part of the Prelates that assisted at it were living to confute it and protest against it the Decretals of that Pope being published within twelve years after that Council Answ. 2. All Historians of those times testify no Canons were made in that Council except one or two about the Recovery of the Holy Land and the Subjection of the Greek Church to the Roman Repl. Not one Historian testifies any such negative Answ. 3. This Decree was not found among the other Acts of the Council for 300 years Repl. It was always among the other Canons in the Decretals of Gregory IX published within twelve years after the Council and in the first Copy that was printed of the Canons of that Council this was one and Cochleus that sent the Copy of it to the Printer said it had been long agoe written out of an ancient Book Answ. 4. This Canon names not Sovereign Princes but Lords onely Repl. It names Lords qui non habent Dominos principales which can be none but Sovereign Princes 5. In Anno 1245. Pope Innocent IV. in a General Council at Lyons by a formal definitive Sentence published in the Council and approved by all the Prelates deposed the Emperour Frederick II d. and absolved all his Subjects from their Oath of Allegeance and not onely that but by his Apostolick authority inhibited them to obey him as Emperour or King and not to advise or aid him as such under pain of Excommunicatio latae sententiae And he grounded his authority for it upon that Text Quodcunque solveris c And it was afterward inserted into the Canons of the Church And it was not given precipitately or in passion but upon consult first had with divers of the most able Divines that were at the Council and after mature debate in divers Consistories in which some of the Cardinals pleaded as Advocates for the Emperour and others answered them insomuch as the Pope could not remember that ever any cause was discussed with more exactness and longer deliberation And they proceeded to the Sentence with much unwillingness and forced by necessity because they saw no other way without offending God the Church and their own consciences and condoling his misery that was sentenced All which the Pope himself wrote in a Letter to the Cistertian Abbots here in England And when the Pope objected in Council to the Emperour the Crimes for which he proceeded against him the Emperour's Advocate a wise and eloquent man Doctour of both Laws and Judge in the Emperour's Court pleaded to it not that the Pope had no Jurisdiction to depose the Emperour but which acknowledged the Jurisdiction that the Emperour was not guilty of the Crimes objected and namely not of Heresie and prayed respite for the Emperour to make his defence in person And the Embassadours of the Kings of France and England seconded his Petition which also was an acknowledging by them of the Pope's Jurisdiction to depose the Emperour and thereupon two weeks respite was granted And when the Emperour heard of it he refused to appear not because they had no Jurisdiction in the cause but because they appeared to be his Adversaries And upon that and other pretexts appeal'd from that to the next more General Council And this Sentence was as I said published with approbation of all the Prelates present in the Council which were to the number of 140 Archbishops and Bishops And
in token of their concurring thereunto after it was pronounced all the Prelates lighting their Tapers held them downward and so put them out and threw them on the ground And every one of them set his hand to the Bull of the Sentence And there were present at it the other Emperour of Constantinople the Embassadours of France and England and of most other Christian States and not one of them no not the Emperour 's own Advocate opened his mouth against the Jurisdiction of the Court onely he put in his Appeal from it to the next more General Council which is an acknowledging the Jurisdiction Yea and the Emperour himself when the Sentence was reported to him though he slighted it as unjust and frivolous yet he never excepted to it as given à non Iudice And the King of England and the French King Lewis IX afterwards Canonized for a Saint and their Nobles justified the Sentence and the French King took upon him the protecting of the Pope's cause against the Emperour 6. In the same General Council of Lyons was made a Canon That whatever Prince should cause any Christian to be murthered by an Assasin he should ipso facto incurre the Sentence of Excommunication and Deposition 7. In Anno 1606. Pope Paul V. by a Breve written to the English Catholicks declared and taught them as Pastor of their Souls That the Oath of Allegeance establish'd by Parliament 3. Iac. salvâ Fide Catholicâ Salute animarum suarum praestari non potest cùm multa contineat quae Fidei ac Saluti apertè adversantur Now there are not in it multa to which this Censure is possibly applicable unless this be one That the Pope hath no Power to depose the King or absolve his Subjects from their Oath of Allegeance Therefore this Proposition was condemned by that Pope as contra Fidem Salutem animae 8. In Anno 1648. Pope Innocent X. censured the Subscribers negatively to these Propositions 1. The Pope or Church hath power to absolve any persons from their Obedience to the Civil Government established or to be established in this Nation in Civil affairs 2. By the command or dispensation of the Pope or Church it is lawfull to kill or doe any injury to persons condemned or excommunicated for Heresy or Schism 3. It is lawfull by dispensation at least from the Pope to break Promise or Oath made to Hereticks to have done unlawfully and incurred the Censures contained in the holy Canons and Apostolick Constitutions contra negantes Pontificiam authoritatem in causis Fidei Now there is none of these Propositions to which this Censure can reasonably be fastened but the first onely therefore that was thus censured 9. This very last year the now Pope being consulted touching the lawfulness of taking the late Irish Protestation in which is renounced this Power of the Pope declared That instar repullulantis Hydrae it did contain Propositiones convenientes cum aliis à Sede Apostolica olim reprobatis signanter à fel. mem Paulo V. per Constitutionem in forma Brevis nuper anno 1648. in Congregatione specialiter commissa ab Innocentio X. c. Se graviter indoluisse quòd per exemplum Ecclesiasticorum tracti sint in eundem errorem Nobiles Seculares ejusdem Regni Hiberniae quorum Protestationem ac Subscriptiones pariter reprobat idque ad eximendas Catholicorum conscientias à dolo errore quo circumveniuntur 10. That this hath been the common received Doctrine of all School-Divines Casuists and Canonists from first to last afore Calvin's time in all the several Nations of Christendome yea even in France it self yea even of those French Divines that were most eager for their Temporal Princes against the Pope as Occam Almain Ioann Parisiens Gerson c. you may see abundantly proved by that admirable man Cardinal Peron in his Oration made in the name of all the Bishops of France to the Third Estate of Parliament And it is convinced by this That neither Barclay nor Widdrington nor Caron nor any other Champion for the contrary Tenet hath been yet able to produce so much as one Catholick Authour afore Calvin's time that denied this Power to the Pope absolutely or in any case whatsoever as will appear by examining their quotations To conclude then This having been for some Ages One at least the common Belief Sense and Doctrine of the Church according to which she hath frequently and avowedly practised and proceeded in her highest Courts and inflicted her highest Censures upon the Opponents of it If it be an Errour the Church was at that time a wicked and blind Church a Synagogue of Satan the Pillar and Ground of Truth and with it the whole Fabrick of Faith and Religion shook and tottered If it were no Errour they that now call it an Errour are wicked Catholicks and in damnable Errour Nor though all the Doctours of Sorbon all the Parliaments and Vniversities of France all the Fryars or Blackloists in England or Ireland all the Libertines Politicians and Atheists in the world should declare for it could it ever be an Authority to make it a probable Opinion THE SECOND TREATISE AGAINST THE OATH of ALLEGEANCE Some few Questions concerning the Oath of Allegeance which have now been publick for divers years reduced to one principall Question concerning the Substance of the said Oath CHAP. I. The Occasion and State of the present Question IN the year 1661. was published a small Treatise under this Title Some few Questions concerning the Oath of Allegeance which were proposed by a Catholick Gentleman in a Letter to a Person of Learning and Honour A late officious hand hath now in the year 1674. thought it seasonable to re-publish this short and judicious Treatise for the satisfaction of such as are at present either concerned or curious The Authour 's professed design in these Questions concerning the Oath was to propose his sense by way of Quaere's wherein he hopes not to be accused of presumption whilst he onely seeks what he professeth not to know And yet is so knowing that though he could heartily wish for a more condescending form of Oath he sticks not to affirm and he is positive in it that if the manner of expression were a little changed every syllable of the substance might be intirely retained Now if you ask him what he means by the Substance of the Oath he expresly tells you that the Substance of the Oath is the Denying and abjuring the Pope's power to depose Princes For my part 't is as far from my thoughts as forrein to my present purpose to speak any thing in favour of this Deposing power nor shall I at all play the criticall Interpreter of the Oath nor concern my self with raising any artificiall and learned obscurities such as the Publisher hints at about any inconvenient phrase nor boggle at the form and dress but closely apply my reason
controversie between the Deniers and Assertors of the Deposing power For that this Deposing doctrine hath been held by Popes and other Learned Divines not onely as speculatively probable but also as safely practicable even against one in possession appears manifestly not onely by their open pretence and claim but also by their frequent and publick Sentence of Deposition against severall Sovereign Powers all of them actually in possession even from the time of the Emperour Hen. IV. to the days of King Hen. IV. of France the first and last of Christian Princes who stand as instances upon record and sad testimonialls of Papal Deposition the one having had the Sentence of Deprivation passed against him by Pope Gregory VII the other by Sixtus V. England in particular hath cause to remember and deplore the lamentable effects of the like Sentence pronounced by Paulus Tertius against King Hen. VIII and of Pius Quintus against Queen Elizabeth Likewise I have already in the Fourth Chapter quoted the testimony and free acknowledgment of the Authour of the Questions that this act of deposing Kings hath not onely been done by Popes but approved by Councills All which I do not produce any more then he himself doth with the least intention or design to interest my self in the decision of that Question or to prove that the Doctrine is in it self practically probable but onely that it was held so by Popes Councils and Learned Divines and therefore as being a controverted Point of doctrine can be no due and immediate object of an assertory Oath nor safely abjurable even by those who otherwaies hold it safely deniable as practically no Power at all There followeth another Argument which the Authour of the Questions in pursuance of his usual way of arguing and conformably to the title of his Work proposeth by way of Quere Let them tell me saith he pag. 25. are they not ready to swear they will faithfully serve their King whiles they live and that notwithstanding any Papall Dispensation or whatever other proceeding to the contrary What signifies this but an express renouncing all Obedience to the Pope in these Points True say they we renounce Obedience but not the acknowledgment of his Power we will adhere to the King though the Pope should depose him but will not say he cannot depose him What wise and reall difference as to Government and the practicall part of humane life can we imagine between these two I 'll swear never to obey my Commander and I 'll swear he has no Power to command me The summe of the first part of this Discourse which is quite besides the Question in a short word is this either deny the Pope's Authority or obey it so that if those good Subjects who are ready to swear they will adhere to the King though the Pope should depose him will but say though not swear he cannot depose him which is no more then with the French Divines to deny the Deposing power then the Gentleman and the first part of his Argument are satisfied Now to his Question that follows which is the second and indeed the onely pertinent part of his Argument what wise and real difference as to Government and the practicall part of humane life there is between these two I 'll swear never to obey my Commander and I 'll swear he hath no Power to command me they will easily answer that the last of these two Oaths is an assertory Oath and swears to a disputable piece of Doctrine as to an absolute Truth which is down-right Perjury as hath been proved already in the 2.3.4 and 5. Chapters the other I 'll swear never to obey my Commander to wit the Pope in this particular case of Deposing the King being a promissory Oath and tending wholly to practice engages not for the absolute truth of any Doctrine but onely for the Swearer's Allegeance and Loyalty and therefore requires no absolute certainty to build on but onely a safe and practically-probable Opinion as a sufficiently-strong principle of action such as the Authour of the Questions every-where designedly maintains the Deniall of the Pope's Deposing power to be from whence they will lastly conclude that there is as much difference between these two Oaths as between Perjury and Loyalty and sure that is difference enough even as to Government and the practical part of humane life In the last place comes his conjectural proof or rather his meer affirmative presumption That our glorious Ancestours who refused and suffered for refusing the Oath of Allegeance would certainly have changed their judgment had they but seen read perused examined and throughly considered all those many particulars which he dilates upon in a large flourish of words To all which my Fifth Chapter may serve for a Reply and a sufficient evidence that had these worthy Predecessours of ours seen the unanimous Judgment of so many Universities and the publick Subscriptions of so many eminent Regulars they are the words of the Authour of the Questions had they examined the sense of Antiquity towards Sovereign Princes which acknowledge them Supreme in Temporals and accountable to none but God had they read the learned Treatises composed by Catholick Writers both of our own and other Nations where this King-dethroning Power is absolutely disavowed had they perused the Declarations of the Kings in France and Arrests of Parliaments there had they I say done all this and more then this yet after all they could have found the Opinion denying the Deposing power to be no more then an Opinion Neither the Judgment of the French Universities nor the learned Treatises of both the Barkleys father and son nor Withrington's Gloss and Exposition together with the Apologetical answer his Theological Disputation and whatever else he wrote against Suarez Lessius Fitzherbert and Skulkenius can prove it to be any more then an Opinion in the opinion of the Authour and Publisher of the Questions And since that enough hath already been said to prove that an opinionative assent cannot safely ground a consciencious Oath asserting the truth or abjuring the falsehood of the thing that is sworn I shall now pass to this final conclusion of my Discourse That whereas it is the voice and Law of Nature that Protection claims Allegeance and that perfect Subjection to Civil Powers under which we live is the strict injunction no less then dictate of Reason whereby it comes to pass that nothing is or ought to be more inviolably dear to a loyal heart nor more highly and justly valuable in it self then to be and to bear the name of a good Subject life and fortunes are nothing to it yet since that to take the Oath as it lies were to over-buy that precious title by making Perjury the price of it and laying out our very Souls upon the purchace whenas it is to be had at a much cheaper rate and as with more ease to the Conscience of the Subject so with no
the Affirmative of the latter Question and onely differ as to the Persons in whom the Power of calling Princes to an Account doth lie whether it be in the Pope or the People And even as to this they do not differ so much as men may at first imagine For however the Primitive Christians thought it no Flattery to Princes to derive their Power immediately from God and to make them accountable to him alone as being Superiour to all below him as might be easily proved by multitudes of Testimonies yet after the Pope's Deposing Power came into request the Commonwealth-Principles did so too and the Power of Princes was said to be of another Original and therefore they were accountable to the People Thus Gregory VII that holy and meek-spirited Pope not onely took upon him to Depose the Emperour and absolve his Subjects from their Allegeance but he makes the first constitution of Monarchical Government to be a meer Vsurpation upon the just Rights and Liberties of the People For he saith That Kings and Princes had their beginning from those who being ignorant of God got the power into their hands over their equals through the instigation of the Devil and by their pride rapine perfidiousness murther ambition intolerable presumption and all manner of wickedness This excellent account of the Original of Monarchical Government we have from that famous Leveller Gregory VII that most Holy and Learned Pope who for his Sanctity and Miracles was canonized for a Saint as the Authour of the First Treatise notably observes Did ever any Remonstrance Declaration of the Army or Agreement of the People give a worse account of the beginning of Monarchy then this Infallible Head of the Church doth What follows from hence but the justifying all Rebellion against Princes which upon these Principles would be nothing else but the People's recovering their just Rights against intolerable Usurpations For shame Gentlemen never upbraid us more with the pernicious Doctrines of the late Times as to Civil Government The very worst of our Fanaticks never talked so reproachfully of it as your canonized Saint doth Their Principles and Practices we of the Church of England profess to detest and abhorre but I do not see how those can doe it who have that Self-denying Saint Gregory VII in such mighty veneration I pray Gentlemen tell me what Divine Assistence this good Pope had when he gave this admirable Account of the Original of Civil Government and whether it be not very possible upon his Principles for men to be Saints and Rebells at the same time I have had the curiosity to enquire into the Principles of Civil Government among the fierce Contenders for the Pope's Deposing power and I have found those Hypotheses avowed and maintained which justifie all the Practices of our late Regicides who when they wanted materials and Examples of former Ages when they had a mind to seem learned in Rebellion they found no Smith in Israel but went down to the Philistins to sharpen their fatal Axe Else how came the Book of Succession to the Crown of England to be shred into so many Speeches and licensed then by such Authority as they had to justify their Proceedings against our late Sovereign of glorious Memory Wherein the main design is to prove That Commonwealths have sometimes lawfully chastised their lawfull Princes though never so lawfully descended or otherwise lawfully put in possession of their Crowns and that this hath fallen out ever or for the most part commodious to the Weal-publick and that it may seem that God approved and prospered the same by the good Success and Successours that ensued thereof These were the Principles of the most considerable men of that Party here in England at that time For it is a great and common mistake in those that think the Book of Succession to have been written by F. Parsons alone For he tells us that Card. Allen Sir Francis Inglefield and other principal persons of our Nation are known to have concurred to the laying together of that Book as by their own hands is yet extant and this to the publick benefit of our Catholick Cause First that English Catholicks might understand what special and precise Obligation they have to respect Religion in admitting any new Prince above all other Respects humane under heaven And this is handled largely clearly and with great variety of learning reasons doctrine and examples throughout the First Book This was purposely intended for the Exclusion of His Majestie 's Royall Family K. Iames being then known to be a firm Protestant and therefore two Breves were obtained from the Pope to exclude him from the Succession which were sent to Garnet Provincial of the Iesuits One began Dilectis Filiis Principibus Nobilibus Catholicis the other Dilecto Filio Archipresbytero reliquo Clero Anglicano In both which the Pope exhorts them not to suffer any person to succeed in the Crown of England how near soever in Bloud unless he would not barely tolerate the Catholick Faith but promote it to the utmost and swear to maintain it By virtue of which Apostolical Sentence Catesby justified himself in the Gun-powder-Treason For saith he if it were lawfull to exclude the King from the Succession it is lawfull to cast him out of Possession and that is my work and shall be my care Thus we see the Pope's Deposing power was maintained here in England by such who saw how necessary it was for their purpose to defend the Power of Commonwealths over their Princes either to exclude them from Succession to the Crown or to deprive them of the Possession of it The same we shall find in France in the time of the Solemn League and Covenant there in the Reigns of Henry III. and IV. For those who were engaged so deep in Rebellion against their lawfull Princes found it necessary for them to insist on the Pope's Power to depose and the People's to deprive their Sovereigns Both these are joyned together in the Book written about the just Reasons of casting off Henry III. by one who was then a Doctour of the Sorbon wherein the Authour begins with the Power of the Church but he passes from that to the Power of the People He asserts the Fundamental and Radical Power to be so in them that they may call Princes to account for Treason against the People which he endeavours at large to prove by Reason by Scripture by Examples of all sorts forrein and domestick And he adds That in such cases they are not to stand upon the niceties and forms of Law but that the necessities of State do supersede all those things If this man had been of Counsel for the late Regicides he could not more effectually have pleaded their Cause The next year after the Murther of Henry III. by a Monk acted and inspired by these Rebellious Principles came forth another virulent Book against Henry IV. under the name
Princes there had been no Religion left in many Countries And he finds great fault with the Catholicks in England that they suffered Heretical Princes to live and saith that they deserved to endure the miseries they did undergo because of it that there is no juster cause of War then Religion is that the Prince and People make a solemn League and Covenant together to serve God and if the Prince fail of his part the People ought to compell him to it And he accounts this a sufficient Answer to all Objections out of Scripture If he will not hear the Church how much more if he persecutes it let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican And he brings all the Examples he could think of to justify Rebellion on the account of Religion Rossaeus proves that Hereticks being Excommunicated lose all Right and Authority of Government and therefore it is lawfull for their Subjects to rise up against them and that no War is more just or holy then this Which he endeavours at large to defend and to answer all Objections against it And the contrary Opinion he saith was first broached by the Calvinists in France when they had the expectation of the Succession of Henry IV. which Doctrine he calls Punick Divinity and Atheism and the New Gospel The truth is he doth sufficiently prove the Lawfulness of resisting Princes on the account of Religion to have obtained together with the Pope's Power of deposing Princes And there can be no other way to justifie the Wars and Rebellions against Henry IV. of Germany and France and other Princes after their Excommunications by the Pope but by stifly maintaining this Principle of the Lawfulness of resisting Authority on the account of Religion And therefore this cannot be looked on as the Opinion of a few factious spirits but as the just consequence of the other Opinion For the Pope's Deposing power would signifie very little unless the People were to follow home the blow and to make the Pope's Thunder effectual by actual Rebellion And the Popes understand this so well that they seldom denounce their Sentence of Excommunication against Princes but when all things are in readiness to pursue the design as might be made appear by a particular History of the several Excommunications of Princes from the Emperour Henry IV. to our own times If they do forbear doing the same things in our Age we are not to impute it to any alteration of their minds or greater Kindness to Princes then formerly but onely to the not finding a fit opportunity or a Party strong and great enough to compass their ends For they have learnt by experience that it is onely loss of Powder and Ammunition to give fire at too great a distance and that the noise onely awakens others to look to themselves but when they meet with a People ready prepared for so good a Work as the Nuntio in Ireland did then they will set up again for this Good Old Cause of Rebellion on the account of Religion And it is observable that Cardinal Bellarmin among other notable Reasons to prove the Pope's Deposing power brings this for one Because it is not lawfull for Christians to suffer an Heretical Prince if he seeks to draw his Subjects to his Belief And what Prince that believes his own Religion doth it not And what then is this but to raise Rebellion against a Prince whenever he and they happen to be of different Religions But that which I bring this for is to shew that the Pope's Deposing power doth carry along with it that mischievous Principle to Government of the Lawfulness of resisting Authority on the account of Religion And from this Discourse I infer that there can be no real Security given to the Government without renouncing this Deposing power in the Pope But that which is the present pretence among them is that it is not this they stick at but the quarrel they have at the Oath of Allegeance as it is now framed I shall therefore proceed to the Second thing viz. II. That if they do renounce the Pope's Deposing power in good earnest they have no reason to refuse the Oath of Allegeance And now Gentlemen I must again make my Address to you with great thanks for the satisfaction you have given me in this particular I have seriously read and considered your Treatises and I find by them all that if you durst heartily renounce this Doctrine all the other parts of the Oath might go down well enough The Authour of the First Treatise is so ingenuous as to make the following Proposition the whole Foundation of his Discourse viz. That it is not lawfull to take any Oath or Protestation renouncing the Pope's Power in any case whatsoever to Depose a Christian Prince or Absolve his Subjects from their Allegeance And in my mind he gives a very substantial Reason for it Because the holding that he hath no such Power is Erroneous in Faith Temerarious and Impious What would a man wish for more against any Doctrine Whatever P. W. and his Brethren think of this Deposing power this Piece doth charge them home and tells them their own and that they are so far from being sound Catholicks that deny it that in one word they are Hereticks damnable Henrician Hereticks What would they be thought Catholicks that charge the Church for so many Ages with holding a damnable Errour and practising mortal Sin as their Church hath done if the Pope hath no Deposing power For this honest Gentleman confesseth That it is a Doctrine enormously injurious to the Rights of Princes and the cause of much deadly Feud betwixt the Church and Secular States of many bloudy Wars of Princes one against another and wicked Rebellions of Subjects against their Princes O the irresistible power of Truth How vain is it for men to go about to Masquerade the Sun His light will break through and discover all It is very true this hath been the effect of this blessed Doctrine in the Christian world Seditions Wars Bloudshed Rebellions what not But how do you prove this to have been the Doctrine of the Church of Rome How say you by all the ways we can prove any Doctrine Catholick Popes have taught it from Scripture and Tradition and condemned the contrary as Erroneous in faith Pernicious to salvation wicked Folly and Madness and inflicted Censures on them that held it Have they so in good sooth Nay then it must be as good Catholick Doctrine as Transubstantiation its own self if it hath been declared in Councils and received by the Church Yes say you that I prove by the very same Popes the same Councils the same Church and in the same manner that Transubstantiation was And for my part I think you have done it and I thank you for it I am very well satisfied with your Proofs they are very solid and much to the purpose But above