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A35696 Jus Cæsaris et ecclesiæ vere dictæ or, A treatise wherein independency, presbytery, the power of kings, and of the church, or of the brethren in ecclesiastical concerns, government and discipline of the church : and wherein also the use of liturgies, tolleration, connivence, conventicles or private assemblies, excomminication, election of popes, bishops, priests what and whom are meant by the term church, 18 Matthew are discoursed : and how I Cor. 14. 32. generally misunderstand is rightly expounded : wherein also the popes power over princes, and the liberty of the press, are discoursed / by William Denton ... Denton, William, 1605-1691. 1681 (1681) Wing D1066; ESTC R9164 326,898 268

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milites tuos subtrahis and a little after requirat ergo Dominus meus piissimus quis prior imperatorum talem legem dederit subtilius extimet si debuit dari And concluding in the end what it is that he desires of the Emperor saith unde per eundem tremendum Judicem deprecor ne illae tantae lachrimae tantae orationes tanta jejunia tantaeque elemoslnae Domini mei ex qualibet occasione apud omnipotentis Dei oculos fuscentur sed aut temperanda pietas vestra aut mutando rigorem ejusdem legis inflectat such humble and decent remonstrance well-becoming a Pious Bishop or Pastor deserves not to be termed by Bellarmine A sharp reprehension But what follows is yet more worthy to be considered Ego quident jussioni subjectus eandem legem per diversas partes terrarum transmitto quia lex ipsa omnipotenti Deo minime concordat ecce per suggestionis meae paginam Dominis nuntiavi utrobique ergo quae debui exolvi qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro Deo quod sensi minime tacui By which humble expressions it appears that it was not a sharp reprehension but rather an humble and respective remonstrance which hath no agreement with the Doctrine wich Bellarmine hath published wherein he makes the Pope Supream Temporal Monarch and the Princes of the World less than his Vassals as his words do necessarily infer altho they dare not yet avow it in express terms Consider Reader whether Gregory calling himself so often the Emperors unworthy Servant and his saying that as one that acknowledgeth himself subject to his Commandement he had sent abroad into divers parts of the World a Law which in his conscience he held not to be just And that other saying of his that in so doing he rendred unto the Emperor that obedience that was due unto him whether I say these Speeches do agree with the Doctrine which Bellarmine hath published who ever desires to know more of Gregory's modesty prudence and submissive deportment towards his Lord the Emperor may receive full satisfaction if he please to read his 64th Epistle I shall end this with this observation of Bellarmines great subtilty in that he forbears to quote the place it self of Gregory being so exact and subtle in his Allegation of other places But what if Pope Gregory did sharply reprove him It was but his duty Quatenus a Bishop which priviledge belongs to all Bishops as well as to the Pope as being in the same Commission viz. Tell Judah of her sins and Israel of her transgressions so it is but according to the duty of all Priests to dispense the word of truth be therewith displeased who will And all being granted it makes nothing at all for the Impery of Popes over Princes His next Fortress Ch. Novit examined is the Chapter Novit which because it most particularly concerned John King of England you shall have the true ground and History thereof This Chapter Novit de Judiciis was indeed admirably well designed and well Calculated for Papal Grandeur and Impery but not in the least what pretence soever was held out for the just right of Kings or of any other Mode of Civil Government good of Christians or glory of God It was designed purposely by Innocent the Third to trample on the necks of Kings as once that Monster Alexander the Third did on the prostrate neck of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa blasphemously arrogating to himself for his warrant Psalm 91.13 Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and Adder the young Lion and the Dragon shalt thou trample under thy feet as if David more than 1000 years before there was any Pope should particularly Prophesie of Popes And he followed this blow with all the might he had by endeavoring to put it in practice on John King of England and Philip Augustus King of France But the truth is he wanted the Welch-mans Back-sword with two Edges for he neither had the true Bilbo-blade Temporal Power sufficient to force obedience nor yet the Sword of the Spirit Rightful Authority to do what he did He only sent out his Voice yea and that a mighty voice by thundring out his abominable Excommunications which only proved to be vox praeterea nihil Take the Scene and History as it then lay After long Wars between Philip Augustus King of France and Richard King of England About Anno Dom. 1199. Richard died and his Brother John surnamed Lackland succeeded him either by the Nomination or appointment of his Brother as some affirm or by Usurpation upon Arthur who was Son to Geossery another Elder Brother of his But those Territories which John possessed in France submitted themselves to the Dominion of Arthur followed the faction of the French King and was supported by him But at length about Anno Dom. 1200. by means of a Marriage between Lewis Son and Heir and Successor of the French King and Blanche of Castile King John's Sisters Daughter of which Marriage issued afterwards St. Lewis A Peace was concluded between Philip and John wherein Arthur was likewise comprised upon this Condition that John should do Homage to Philip for the Dominions of Brittany and Normandy and Arthur should do Homage for the same unto John After this upon some occasion that fell out Arthur was put in Prison by his Uncle the King of England and there died Anno Dom. 1203. and the common opinion was that he was murthered by his Uncles command whereupon Philip Augustus as Chief Lord of the Fee caused John to be cited to Paris and upon default of his appearance condemned him and confiscated those Territories which he held of him and went afterwards with an Army to seize them into his hands by force John pretended that this was directly against the Peace and Treatise between them and made his complaint to Innocent the Third who commanded both the Kings upon pain of Excommunication to keep Peace and to surcease from War and sent also a Legate unto them for that purpose John for whose advantage this Commandment was did gladly embrace but Philip found himself much grieved and took great exceptions against it and so did the Prelates of France in this behalf unto whom Innocent the Third made that answer contained in the Chapter Novit Philip for all that desisted not from his former purpose but went on and conquered by the Sword all the Territories that the English at that time possessed in France neither could the Pope prevail any thing by his Commands In the year 1208. Innocent the Third Excommunicated John and Interdicted his whole Kingdom which continued six years and three months yet did not John yield to obey the Pope in that he required of him The Pope sent Pandulphus his Legate into France to Philip to perswade him to make War upon John Philip made his preparations accordingly and many Barrons of England combined themselves with him but in the mean time Pandulphus coming into
England and letting John see the danger he was in advised him to become the Popes Foedatary John enforced by the present peril accepted the advice and made his Kingdom Tributary to the Pope to pay him yearly 1000 Marks of Gold Pandulphus hereupon returned into France and commanded Philip upon pain of Excommunication that he should molest John no longer as being now become the Foedatary of the Church but Philip refused to obey and the War continued whereupon in the year 1215. in the Council of Lateran Pope Innocent sent out an Excommunication against all those that molested John King of England And for that Cause in the year 1216. Another Legate called Guallo went to Paris who by vertue of that Sentence of Excommunication commanded Philip and Lewis his Son to forbear to pass with an Army into England which they were then prepared to do But notwithstanding all this Lewis desisted not but entred John's Kingdom with a great power altho the same Guallo was gone over into England and there ceased not dayly to thunder out his Excommunications This War continued unto the death of John after which Lewis had gotten many places of that Kingdom into his hands made Truce for five years with Henry the Son of John who succeeded his Father Thus you see how the very Holiness of Rome can Handy Dandy play fast and loose with Kings themselves § Concerning the desperate damnable Doctrines of this Chapter Novit little ought to be said for that they rather deserve a Spunge than an answer to be obliterated out of all Records minds and memories and because Gabriel Biel a man of their own Leaven hath taken great pains on that Can. Lec 75. to give some tollerable interpretation but can find none but this viz. that this Decretal and all other of the same tenor must be understood in foro poenitentiae A lame shift to help a lame Dog over a stile But Bellarmine will not be so consined he will extend it farther Frier Paolo and mark what follows even according to men of Rome that whoever will affirm as Bellarmine doth that they are to be understood in foro exteriori shall have much ado to avoid the absurdities and the utter overthrow of the Secular Power ordained of God and the confusion of the World which will arise out of these Doctrines For his purpose is to conclude that where Princes use their Power to the hurt of their own Souls or their Peoples and to the prejudice of Christian Religion the Pope may take the matter in hand to redress it If this must go for currant Doctrine mark what will follow viz. There is no action of man in Individuo but it is either a good work or it is a sin Now if it belongs to the Pope to exercise Jurisdiction over all Sins and withall to take upon him to determine what is sin and what not I say there is no longer any Prince but the Pope nay farther there is no place left for any private Government In sum the Pope may by this Doctrine examine all Laws all Edicts all Parliaments all Councils all Successions all Translation of Princes he may call in question and examine all Inheritances and Contracts of all private Men all Marriages all Treatises of Peace and War between Prince and Prince because it belongs to the Shepherd to have a care of his Sheep And this inference doth not only necessarily follow of this supposition but it is also allowed by the Canonists that write upon that Chapter Novit And yet nevertheless have the wisest men and of the most understanding noted and taxed it to be full of Absurdities which to avoid some have out of that Chapter Novit framed a distinction where there can be none viz. that it is one thing to judge of the matter or of the Action or of the contract and another to judge of the sin for if it be the Pope's right to judge of all things as they are sins and to forbid them and to enforce all men to obey his determinations therein what is there more left then for the Prince to do Not one of Democritus's Moats for Bellarmine hath taught us a very general Doctrine that to judge whether any Law contain in it sin or not it belongs to the Pope as it belongs to the Ecclesiastical Judge to determine whether a Civil Contract contain in it the sin of Vsury Hence it will necessarily follow Che il giudicare st una lege centient p●ccato è pregiudicio alla chi●●a tocca alt ' isteslo sommo Pontifice che è gindice supren o si come il giudlcare se un contratto civile contengo peccato di usura appertiene al medisimo Giudice Ecclesiallico quals appertient la cognitione de i p●ccati f. 330 331. that not only the Pope but every Ecclesiastical Judge shall have Power to determine all matters for it can belong no more to him to judge whether a Contract offend in Usury than whether it contain any other wrong or Injury to his neighbor for all that do so are sins as well as the other And by the same reason it will belong to the Ecclesiastical Judge to determine of all manner of sin And in brief because there is no Action or Affair either Publick or Private whereunto sin is not Incident if it shall be in the Power of the Ecclesiastical Judge to determine and judge of it and either to allow it or forbid it and to enforce obedience to his own determinations All transactions about Contracts all Courts of Justice and all private Families may well be transferred into the Bishops Palace good grist to that Mill But the true Christian Doctrine and the common practice all the World over avoids all these absurdities subjecting all Crimes and Offences unto the Temporal Jurisdiction according to the example of Christ and his Apostles who never pretended to have or exercise any Temporal coertion or coactive Authority over mens sins And if the Pope were Christ's true Vicar indeed he would never usurp more than ever Christ exercised himself or gave him Authority to do The main business of Peter and of the rest of the Apostles was to Teach and Preach dayly in the Temple and in every House Jesus Christ Acts 5.42 Thus you see that these very Doctrines contained in the Chapter Novit need little of our Confutation it is done to our hands by several of themselves and according to their own St. Thomas they are too general because there must be excepted all internal motions of the mind whereof the Pope hath no power at all to judge unless it be in foro Poenitentiae in which also every Priest hath equal power with himself no pleasing Doctrine at Rome and of this sort are the greatest number of sins And their own Divines and Canonists do generally agree that in the Excommunications granted against Hereticks those are not comprized which err mentally so that they which attempt to defend as
vel indignos recusandi quod ipsam videmusde divina Authoritate descendere ut sacerdos plebe praesente sub omnium oculis deligatur c. whereby it appears that the supream Power of choosing such Priests as are worthy and refusing unworthy doth principally rest in the People And he speaketh of Bishops particularly although in the words alledged he mentioneth Priests and withal it is not only St. Cyprians Epistle but the Epistle of thirty six Bishops and written to the Common People of Leon Asturia and Emerita Vide his 14. Epist of his 3. Lib. such Authorities we may alledge but not mystical and enforced Explications nor yet wrong Conclusions from right Premisses The Faithful Flock of Christ ought to resemble Sheep indeed in humility and innocency yet ought they not to be so sheepish or sottish as to decline the Authority which Christ their great Shepherd hath bestowed on them either of choosing them a Good or of judging a Wicked Shepherd St. Austin proves unanswerably that Doctrines are to be grounded on the Literal Sense of the Scripture and not on any Mystical Interpretation In this equivocating Art of Sophistry Bellarmine hath shewed both in this Subject as in others his great dexterity first to settle with the Reader the Relation which the Holy Church hath towards the Divine Majesty and then to conclude on the Relation towards the Pope such false Sophistry such disingenuity becomes not so great a Prince so great a Scholar as himself but the Parisians no Protestants conclude that God hath called the Church to the Faith and his Worship and that he hath placed Christ over it for an Head for ever who first himself did govern it on Earth in the days of his Flesh but being ascended into Heaven doth rule it with inward influence and assistance invisible unto the end of the World It is true that the Church is not a Common-wealth as Venice or as Geneva which give as much Authority as themselves please to their Dukes and Princes nor a Kingdom which may change the manner of governing it neither invisibly nor visibly because that Christ hath prescribed the manner much less is it such a Kingdom as England which hath a Blood-Royal where the Kings succeed by Birth neither as some other by Testament but as touching the Inward Government and meerly Spiritual it is not like unto any because it hath a perpetual Immortal and Eternal King who only knows the Heart and tries the Reins In the visible Government it hath a Ministry whose Authority was instituted by Christ and independing of the Church but as concerning the Application of this Authority unto this or that Person it is elective or depending of it Wherefore when he alledgeth I am constituted a King by him Our Lord God shall give him a Kingdom Luke 1.32 and 12.32 You chose not me but I have chosen you John 15.16 Thou hast made us to our God a Kingdom All these places and such like others are meant of the Invisible Spiritual and Interior Kingdom where the Pope hath no regiment nor influence at all but Christ is all in all governing by his Spirit and according to the Council of his own Will Thus he having laid down and proposed to use a Proposition or Doctrine quodammodo and in some sense true and having Validity under the Covert of an Universal yet having applied it to wrong Particulars it hath lost its Energy and Effort and its fallacy is discovered A piece of Artifice and Skill that runs through the Veins and Lines of most Popish Writers in the Controversies between us and them and what else is this but to make Lies their refuge and under Falshood to shelter themselves If Popes may now excommunicate as they pretend yet this concludes not that they may excommunicate Princes or Magistrates or whole Common-wealths The Primitives of old did use excommunication very sparingly and moderately and with great prudence and policy and with great respect to the good of the Church And therefore be the Power what or where it will St. Augustine holds an Excommunication against a Multitude though it were for some notorious and manifest sin too sacrilegious pernicious impious and insolent Lib. 3. contra Ep. Permen 23.4.4 c. non potest And Thomas putteth a Question whether any generality may be excommunicated and he answereth himself No and produceth Reasons for the same concluding that the Church appointeth with great Providence that no Community might be excommunicated And all other Divines with one accord determine the same And also Pope Innocent the 4th in the Chap. Rom. saith In Vniversitatem vel Collegium proferri sententiam Excommunicationis penitus prohibere de Sentent excom in 6. We must know that it is of worse consequence and example where ●t is used against Princes than divers other Bodies and Societies in as much as one Prince is of more consequence and power than thousands of other Lay-men We know also that in all Judgments there is a necessity of a Legal Trial to precede Conviction And that great Multitudes may be convented examined sentenced and punished with less disturbance of Peace less violation of Majesty than those that sway the Ball-Imperial Besides if the condemnation of Princes might be upon due Trials without violence yet the execution of the Sentence would produce more monstrous events in them than in private Men for how shall the People honour obey and reverence him in the State as Gods Lieutenant whom they see accursed cut off and abhorred in the Church as the Devils Vassal upon the excommunication of Princes whole Nations have been interdicted witness England Venice and other in the times of several Popes whole States subjected to ruine the Innocent with the Obstinate the Princes with the People all have have been sacrificed to Blood-thirsty-Popish-Priests under pretence of obedience to the Holy Catholick Church In what Code of the Ancient Church can it be found where any such strange kind of punishment was ever instituted as that for the offence of a few many Millions of Souls should be accursed cast out of the Church and in Popish construction damned How can they call that Power Apostolical that punisheth in this manner seeing the Apostolical Power was given for edification and not for destruction And yet so precipitate have some Popes been as to excommunicate whole States and Kingdoms Surely therefore we ought not so tamely to acquiesce on the bare ipse dixit of the Clergy pleading in their own Cause and for themselves only exclusive the Laity Certainly it is too small a security for so great a concern therefore let us a little examine what they urge for this exorbitant Power § If Kings be not this way punishable then they are no other way which is mischievous in the Church Sol. The Jewish Kings were as great and scandalous sinners as Kings-Christian now are yet God assigned no Rulers Spiritual for their Castigation and we must suppose that if it had
Corporation consisting of a Superintendent and 4 other Ministers with Power to fill the Vacant places by a new Succession and the Parties by them chosen to be approved by the King and Council all which and much more his Majesty by Patent dated July 24.4 Edw. 6. did indulge unto him and them notwithstanding that they differed from the Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England which Indulgences the King and Council did hope might have been enjoyed to the Comfort and Advancement and not to the detriment of the Religion and Worship here professed and yet it did prove otherwise and did administer great occasion of great disturbance to the Church in the setling of the Reformation then in agitation and in fieri For by permitting these Men tho strangers to live under an other kind of Government and to Worship God with Forms different from what were by Law here established proved in the Issue the setting up of one Altar against another and the erecting of Regnum in Regno This gave encouragement unto that good and Pious person John Hoopper afterwards Bishop of Gloster and a Holy Martyr who leaving the Kingdom in the persecuting dayes of Henry the 8th and setling himself at Zurich a Town in Switzerland where he enjoyed the society of famous Bullinger and other good and Learned Men and returning into England in the dayes of Edward the 6th and bringing with him stronger Inclinations to the nakedness of the Zuinglian or Helvetian Churches tho dissering in opinion from them in some points of Doctrine and more especially in those of Predestination and being preferred by the Kings Letters Patents to the Bishoprick of Gloucester he did very much scruple to be consecrated in the Bishops habit setled by Rules of the Church which bred very great Inconveniencies and Disturbances inclining others to boggle at the same and other like Rites and Habits from which Men and time we may justly Write the date of our Liturgy becoming a Bone of Contention Indeed he was so Pious a Person that he found many and great Friends both at home and abroad to Countenance him as the Earl of Warwick the Protector Calvin nay the King himself did Write unto Arch-Bishop Cranmer afterwards his fellow Martyr to dispence with his Scruples But the Arch-Bishop to whom Ridley then Bishop of London stuck very close humbly besought the King to Pardon him if he did not obey his Commands against his Laws which would preserve him in peace and quietness if he kept them And yet some Indulgence through so great mediation was permitted unto him viz. that tho he were Consecrated in the habit then in use yet he should not ordinarily be obliged to wear it These differences being thus Broached and finding such great Favourers of them gave encouragement to John Alasco to step out of his bounds and so to abuse the Royal Priviledges that were granted to him as that he appeared in favour of the Zuinglian and Calvinian up-start Discipline by Publishing his Book intituled Forma ratio totius Ecclesiastici Ministerij wherein he maintains sitting at the Holy Communion which Custome he brought from Poland where sitting at the Sacrament was used by the Arrians who looking no otherwise on Christ then as their Elder Brother denying his Godhead thought it no robbery to be equal with him nor ye● to sit Cheek by Jowl with him at his own Table From such Familiarity shall I say or irreverence towards the Son of God grew great contempt of that Ordinance even in those times as hath been observed out of the Register Book of Petworth And yet these were not all the mischiefs these Indulgences did produce For what with Calvins Interposing and mediations with the Protector on the behalf of Bishop Hooper and tho his exceptions against some Antient usages in the Liturgy and tho the Indulgences and Conveniences granted unto John Alasco and his Congregation of Strangers a successive multiplication of Factions and Disorders in the Church did ensue from the Irreverent receiving of the Sacrament grew a Contempt and Depraving of the Sacrament it self from the Contempt of the grave habit of the Clergy grew a disteem of the Men first and then vilifying and contempt of the Ministry it self So that it was Preached at St. Pauls by one St. Stephen the Curate of St. Katherine Christ Church that it was sit the Names of Churches and of the Week dayes should be altered the Fish dayes should be kept on any other dayes than on Fridayes and Saturdayes and Lent at any other time than between Shrovetide and Easter we are told also by John Stow that he had seen the said St. Stephen to leave the Pulpit and to Preach in a Tree in the Church Yard and then returning into the Church to sing the Communion Service on a Tomb Stone neglecting the place appointed for that purpose And was not the like or greater contempts in fashion in our late dayes of Liberty when Liturgies were not only not imposed but disgraced set at nought and used but by some few and that in Corners only so that such exorbitant effects cannot be justly imputed unto the Imposition of Liturgies Look but a little abroad even in the same Age presently after the death of Edward the 6th during the short Reign of Queen Mary where no Liturgy was Imposed and you shall sind the same sad consequences and effects of Liberty among the several Churches or Congregations gathered mostly of those that withdrew themselves from the cruel persecution that Reigned in the Marian dayes unto Embden Stratzburg Frankford Zurick Geneva and other Transmarine places amongst whom the Ball of Contention was very hotly bandied by Calvin Goodman Knox Wood Sutton Whittingham Williams Cox Grindall Sandys Haddon Chamber Parkhust and divers others and all those in defence of several wayes of Worship wherein Knox acted his part so furiously that he gave disturbance to the quiet State and Condition of the Empire so highly that he being accused of high Treason against the Empire he withdrew himself from Stratsburg to Geneva the usual product of such Controversies This I only hint at to make it appear that Liturgies and Forms of Divine Worship do become Bones of Contention as well where they are not Imposed as where they are so that Imposition or not Imposition matters little the Contentious will be always Contending If there were not imposed a stinted Form of Words for the Administration of the Sacrament what should hinder but that every individual Priest might imitate the Vicar of Ratisdale in King James's time or do worse who was proved before the Arch-Bishop and the Lord Chancellour by his unseemly and unreverent usage of the Eucharist dealing the Bread out of a Basket every Man putting in his Hand and taking out a piece to have made many Loath the Holy Communion and wholly to refuse to come to the Church Confer f. 99. 100. Now on the contrary by such Imposition all such
this Life and in that which is to come meer Vassals they and their Subjects likewise in no better condition than the Sheep in Demosthenes where the Dogs were to be banished and the Wolves to be their Guardians for they endeavor to make the World believe that they have power over their Souls and Bodies at their pleasure both in this Life and after Death These have been the Collections and Observations of Fra. Paolo and other learned and faithful Writers and eye-witnesses The best is Ab initio non fuit sie there are no such Doctrines in Bibliis Sacris but the contrary And our Doctrines concerning these points and indeed our Religion is the same which is contained in the Scriptures in General Councils and in the Fathers of the First Three I might say Five Ages which have not been purified in their Purgatory their Indices expurg and agrees with the Articles of Faith and only differs in those which they have lately invented and added which he that examines them one by one shall find that none of them make for the Glory of God but all for the Increase of the Grandeur Wealth worldly Power and Jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Order so that in truth the true Roman Religion such as it was in the dayes of the Apostles and some Centuries next succeeding is insensibly but manifestly Bastardized and become spurious at Rome and all reduced to a new fashioned Religion which chiefly if not only makes for the pomp and Interest of the Court of Rome So that in truth these latter Popes are no more nor otherwise the true Possessors or Successors of St. Peter's Doctrines at Rome than the Grand Signior is of the Doctrines of St. James's at Jerusalem or of St. Paul's in those famous Churches of Asia In the dayes of Sixtus Quintus that Great Prince there lived in Italy that famous Alchymist and Impostor Nick-named Mamugna who was verily believed that he could make Gold not by the Vulgar only but by Cardinals Princes nay by the Pope himself One more wise and more merry than the rest habiting himself like this famous Alchymist went up and down the City of Venice in a Gondelo well fraught with a Cargo of fire Bellows Crucible Glasses c. crying Al Magmugna A tre lire il soldo del loro sino who buyes a shillings worth of pure Gold for nine pence which being told the Turkish Chiaus made this short answer Il gran signore dumque verra a servirlo if he can make Gold the Great Turk shall come to be his Servant I shall make no other Application or inference of this Mountebank Story than what is natural qui vult decipi decipiatur if Princes will be content to let false and base Coin go for currant be it so But in truth all the Papalins were not of the same mind and opinions with those famous Cardinals and Jesuits the Popes Partisans nor with the Court of Rome but Books were Printed Pro and Con by Papalins themselves in great numbers For besides the Papalins within the State of Venice the Sorbonists were very Orthodox and maintained the Defence of the lawful Secular Power opposing themselves against the Usurpations of Rome and maintaining the Liberty of the Gallican Church for that Kingdom holds it for a matter most certain and apparent that Popes have no power over Princes and that they ought not to proceed by Censures against them or their Officers in things which concern the State And as soon as the King knew of the publication of the Monitory at Rome he complained greatly of the too hasty proceedings of the Pope and sent a dispatch to him with speed requesting him to accommodate the differences The King of Polonia absolutely denyed the publishing of the Popes Monitory for that it did not stand with reason to govern themselves after another fashion towards that Republick of Venice whose Cause was common with his own Kingdom The Catholick King of Spain on whom the Pope relyed for Succors for that he had sometime before made liberal offers unto His Holiness from which he retreated in time of necessity and advised him to neglect his own private Interests for the universal good of Christendom and said that it did not beseem the Father of all Christendom to ground a War so cruel and pernitious to Christian People upon a King so pious and that His Holiness would abase the Apostolick Dignity if he sustained by humane means the Authority which God had given him Quarrels of Paul the Fifth pag. 374 375 376. Thus you see Rome it self divided the Pope and Court of Rome differing in this their greatest point and Diana Jurisdiction both from the old and from the more Novel Church of Rome as well as from that of the Church of the Protestants And thus you may perceive the unquiet and uncertain State that all Princes are like to be in and their Condition never like to be better whilst such monstrous State-destroying-Principles are held for Gospel at Rome For it matters not whether these Doctrines are true or false or received and believed by others or no nor yet whether Protestants or Papists it is all a case so long as so believed at Rome You see the State of Venice a Popish Republick no more safe nor quiet than England a Protestant Kingdom Had the Popes Swords been keen and powerful enough no doubt but that they would have brought both those States in their respective differences and quarrels as once Frederick Barbarossa the Emperor to that Brute Alexander the Third creeping on their knees to obtain Absolution from their Sentences of Excommunication or as Henry the Fourth whom Hildebrand would not release from his Excommunication till he came bare-foot to Canusium in a bitter cold Winter waiting three dayes before the Popes Palace for his Absolution which he hardly obtained by the Intercession of the Dutchess Matilda The Pope besides that he is the Head of Romish Religion is also a Prince who hath for more than 600 years by past aspired to the Monarchy of all Italy at least I might say at an universal Monarchy Temporal and Spiritual which he hath been some time so near to obtain that it is a wonder that he hath misled of it seeing he leaves no stone unturned quacunque arte to enlarge his Jurisdiction He hath three great charges upon him 1. That of Religion 2. That of Ecclesiastical affairs 3. The Temporalty of his Estate The care of all which I shall not grudge him as of right belonging unto him in one or other of his Capacities so he kept within his own Dominions and Territories tho happily all of the Romish Religion will not allow him so much for that all Bishops ought to be governed by the Canons and in which both Pope and all Bishops antiently in the best and purest dayes did acknowledge the Supream power to be to which they all submitted and not by the Pope alone there being also three kinds of
Bellarmine doth this Proposition viz. that the Pope may judge of all sins they are forced to except the greater part of particular sins Besides a Prince may sin by breaking his own Laws as the same St. Thomas proves 1.2 quaest 96. Art 5. yet of this sin he cannot be judged of any but God alone as Cajetane in that place declareth shewing that in foro Poenitentiae and in the sight of God is all one in sence Certes to affirm that a Prince transgressing his own Laws should be therein subject to the Censures of the Pope were wholly to take away the Power and Authority of Princes And to affirm that he should be subject to them in other Crimes and not in that were to overthrow the very ground of the reason presupposed in that infamous Chapter Novit Moreover it is very necessary well to observe the very words of Innocent the Third Intendimus decernere de peccato cujus ad nos pertinet sine dubitatione Censura quam in quemlibet exercere possumus debemus And a little after Ad officium nostrum spectat de quocunque peccato mortali corripere quemlibet Christianum which Bellarmine Translates le tutti di Principi del mundo All the Princes of the World by which it is plain he had more than an ordinary Pique at Kings and Princes Now if he be bound by the duty of his place quia potestas nostra non est ex homine sed ex Deo to denounce censures against every mortal sin and against every Christian so offending surely if he do it not he sins and endangers damnation to himself And yet we do not find that the Pope sends out any Censures against the Curtizans the Concubines of Priests and profest Harlots who yet abide and persist notoriously in their sins Besides if by quemlibet Christianum be understood all the Princes of the World as Bellarmine hath rendred it it belongs to him to Excommunicate the Turk the King of Persia the Tartar cum multis aliis And St. Peter's Successor must accuse St. Paul of false Doctrine who said 1 Cor. 1.5.12 quid mihi de his qui foris sunt judicare what have I to do to Judge them that are without § I have insisted the longer on this Chapter Novit because it was designed purposely under pretence of favor to make an Ass of England and her King it being made use of to that very end and also against the French King as appears by the Story And trow you Contrives she not Complots she not at this very day to make England once more to carry the Saddle If ever the like Fate betides us or if ever it be again the Stile of England I cannot say less than Not the Pope only but the Devil rides us § His next recourse is unto another Buckram Decretal Extravagant Vnam Sanctam examined rightly stiled Extravagant called unam Sanctam I must confess I could wish that before he had made any use thereof that he had first reconciled it with another of Pope Clement the Fifth who succeeded him not long after which begins thus Meruit de privilegiis cap. 2. extravag com where Clement saith that he determineth and declareth that by the said Extravagant Vnam Sanctam Meruit charissimi filil nostri Philippi Regis Francorum Illustris sincerae affectionis ad nos Ecclesiam Rom. integritas progenitorum suorum praeclara merita meruerunt Meruit insuper Regnicolarum puritas ac devotionis sinceritas ut tam regem quam regnum favore benevolo prosequamur Hinc est quod nos Regi Regno per definitionem declaration●m banae memoriae Bonisacii Papae Octavi Praedecessoris viri quae incipit Unam Sanctam Nullum volumus vel Intendimus praejudicium generari nec quo id per illam Rex Regnum Regnicolae praelibati amplius Ecclesiae sint subjecti Romanae quam antea existebant sed omnia intelligantur in eodem esse statu quo erant ante definitionem praefaram tam quantum ad Ecclesiam quam etiam ad Regem Regnum Regnieolas superius nominatos there shall be no prejudice or injury done to the King and Kingdom of France nor that the said King and Kingdom shall be any more or otherwise subject to the Church of Rome than they were before but that all things shall continue in the State they were in before that Extravagant Now it had not been unworthy so great an Ecclesiastick as my Lord Cardinal Bellarmine was to have dealt so ingenuously as to have declared whether Boniface in this Extravagant Vnam Sanctam did make a Declaration of Jus Divinum in this point i.e. expound and declare that Jurisdiction which the Pope hath de Jure Divino over Princes or whether he did thereby impose a new subjection over Princes in some matters wherein God had not made them subject before unto the Popes Be it which His Eminency pleaseth it will avail him nought if Boniface meant the latter then it was an Innovation after the year 1294. A meer Extravagant after English Construction a void Decree an Vsurpation an Incroachment and an abuse of the Power given them by God by enlarging it beyond its just bounds Besides by what reason Scriptural or other could Clement declare or mean that France alone should be exempted from that Extravagant and not all other Princes and Kingdoms Neither was it a matter or favor to be yielded as in recompence of the good deserts of that King and Kingdom but a thing due unto them of right and Justice Now if Boniface intended it as a Declaration of Jus Divinum it were worthy our knowledge to know by what right Clement could free the King and Kingdom of France from that subjection which God had appointed them unto the case being very clear according to their own Doctrine that the Pope cannot exempt any man from his own Power and Jurisdiction which he holds de Jure Divino so it undeniably follows that if Boniface were in the right Clement was in the wrong and è contra Pope against Pope no news at all Besides that which Boniface saith in that Extravagant viz. si deviat terrena potestas judicabitur à potestate spirituali that the Authority Temporal when it erreth ought to be corrected and rectified by the Spiritual be a Declaration of the Law of God yet then according to as wise honest and learned of your own Fraternity as ever writ in your defence it ought to be understood only for so much as concerns the Salvation of their Souls and that only in foro Dei and Abstract from all Temporal Power of that kind which the Lawyers term Coactive and that all the Ecclesiastical Power over Princes is therefore only Spiritual And herein we shall not need to have recourse to Signior Papa our Lord the Pope for that this kind of Authority is in every Bishop and Priest how Heretical soever it be esteemed by some