Article of the Catholick Roman faith that Princes excommunicated by the Pope are ipso facto deposed and their subjects absolved from all obedience and fidelity to them It is directly though not believed but by few You have that fundamental Law authentically pronounced by Gregory the VII and it is made a Canon of the Roman Church By Apostolical Causa 15. Qu. 5. cap. Nos Sanctorum Eos qui excommunicatis fidelitate aut Sacramento constricti sunt Apostolica authoritate a juramento absolvivimus ne sibi fidem observent omnibus modis prohibemus authority we absolve from their oath all them that are bound by fidelity or oath to excommunicate persons and by means we forbid them to keep faith unto such persons I would ask the Roman Catholicks Seriously do you believe this And are you ready to seal that faith with your obedience or sufferings upon occasions If you believe and will maintain it you are not good subjects but dangerous persons in the State If you deny faith and obedience to that Papal Decree you are not good Roman Catholicks for if you were you would acknowledge the Pope the Head of the Faith with Bellarmine and that the Pope cannot erre in his Canons and that it is in the Popes power to make Articles of faith according to the determination of the Council of Trent Now the Pope hath made this an Article of your faith the denying of it an heresie and the resisting of it a crime punish'd in the persons of Kings by the deprivation of Kingdom and life Open your eyes Christian souls that are so much blinded as to pin your faith upon the Popes Decrees And reading in your own Authors the histories of the Popes behaviour which I have here represented acknowledg that those Decrees for many hundred years have been the powerful stirrers of rebellion in Christendome and the ambition of Popes the first Intelligence that sets the great Orb of sedition on going After that the Popes have thus commanded and wrought rebellion by express Decrees and filled the Christian world with fire and blood these five or six hundred years have the Jesuites the face when we object this against the Head of their Faith to object unto us in exchange some passages out of books either false or disowned by us if true And the defensive Arms of a few persons living under the Cross and driven by themselves upon the brink of despair The evil which men of our Religion have said or done we condemn freely and openly Let the Romanists condemn also so many Decrees of the Popes which have been the Incentives of war and brands of rebellion But that they cannot as long as they remain Papists sworn to approve all that the Pope saith or doth The difference between the faults of the Pope and those of Protestants about the point of obedience is this That disobedience with us is a crime but with him it is a Law We punish rebels but the Pope rewards them We say to rebels after St Paul That they that So did Sixtus the V. of which before resist the higher powers shall receive to themselves damnation But the Pope promiseth eternal life to make subjects rebel against their King We abhor the murtherers of Kings but the Pope sets them on by his excommunications and after the murther committed makes panegyricks on their praise Can the Romanists produce among us a Priest that hath made himself a Temporal Prince by robbing his Master of his land who hath kickt down the Emperors crown trodden upon his neck with his foot deposed him from his Kingdom made his son rise in Arms against him absolved his subjects from their obedience and given his Dominions to another One that makes himself the absolute disposer of Kingdoms and Master of the Universe Such a Priest is no where to be found but at Rome After this true account of so many Emperours and Kings deposed and killed and so much rebellion slaughter and desolation wrought in Christendom by the Papal excommunications and factions let the conscionable Reader who is not altogether ignorant in modern History judge what truth there is in our Adversaries assertion That in this last Century of years there have been pag. 93. more Princes deposed and murthered for their Religion by those Protestants of Integrity then have been in all the others since Christ's time by the Popes excommunications or the attempts and means of Roman Catholicks He should have set down a list of those Princes deposed and murthered by Protestants and for their Religion For my part I have heard of none Indeed Charles the I. our holy King and Martyr suffered for his Religion and the Adversary may take that one for many because he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worth alone many Princes But they that murthered him were not Protestants they disavow that name And it was for the Protestant Religion that he suffered But since he speaks of the means and attempts made by Roman Catholicks against Princes he shall hear a little more of them CHAP. V. The Adversaries Defence of the Jesuites examined Their Doctrine and Attempts against the Crown and life of Kings THe Adversary who is commended in the Epistle to the Reader as a most observant Son of the Church of England takes upon him the defence of the Jesuite Mariana so infamous for his doctrine of killing of Kings and saith three things about that The one is That he handleth that matter only problematically page 94. But the Court of Parliament of Paris composed of grave heads did not understand it so when they condemned his book to the fire Neither doth he speak of the murther of Henry the III. of France problematically when he exalteth the murtherer in these words Making a shew of delivering Mariana lib. 1. de Rege Regis Iustitutione cap. 6. Specie litteras in manus tradendi cultro quem herbis noxiis medicatum manu tegebat supra vesicam altum vulnus inflixit Insignem animi confidentiam Facinus memorabile Caeso Rege ingens sibi nomen fecit letters to the King he gave him a deep wound above the bladder with a poysoned knife which he hid in his hand O admirable confidence of minde O memorable action by killing the King he got to himself a great name And in the same place he taxeth the Kings servants who presently killed that murtherer of cruelty and barbarousness The second answer for Mariana is That the question was not for killing of Kings but for killing of Tyrants page 94. This man shews himself a right scholar of the Jesuites for this is their distinction But if a King deposed by the Pope keeps his Kingdome in spight of him they account him no more a King but a Tyrant And whereas there are two sorts of Tyrants some by usurpation which they call Tyrannos in Titulo Tyrants in the Title some Tyrants by administration the Jesuites hold That a lawful King
God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restraiz with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Lawes of the Realm may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous crimes It is lawful for Christian men at the Commandment of the Magistrate to wear weapons and serve in the Wars The XXXV Article appoints Homilies against Rebellion to be read in Churches The summary of these Homilies and the whole drift of them is contained First part page 2. of the first Homily against wilful disobedience and rebellion in these words In reading of the holy Scriptures we shall finde in very many and almost infinite places as well of the Old Testament as of the New That Kings and Princes as well the evil as the good do reigne by Gods Ordinance and that subjects are bound to obey them And that Doctrine of the Church of England which is that of the Word of God is fully demonstrated in these godly Homilies published and enjoyned to be read in Churches by Royal Authority CHAP. IV. Proving by the Bulls and Decrees of Popes That the Doctrine of the Roman Court in the point of Obedience to Sovereignes is a Doctrine of Rebellion HItherto we have stood upon the Defensive and have with no great labour wiped off the false and foul aspersions of Rebellion cast upon the Doctrine of the Protestant Churches Let us try whether we can use the Sword as well as the Buckler And we will use no other then the Popes own Sword For as David said of Goliah's sword There is none like that give it me In this Combate the enemies sword is the right weapon none like it The Adversary to disgrace our Doctrine hath objected to us some passages of our Authors most of them false or wrested and some actions of persons of the Protestant party But though he had proved all these to be true he had done no harm to our Doctrine which is not built upon private opinions or upon private or publick actions He should have taken our Confessions in hand and Indicted them of rebellious Tenets if he could have found any Or finding none he should have given glory to God and confessed the Truth of God with us But if I bring him the Bulls of his Popes and their Decrees can he scape as we do when he urgeth us with maxims of Buchanan or Goodman Can he say The Pope speaks Treason and prescribes Rebellion as we say of these men and my faith is not tyed to his authority Can he as freely go off from the Popes judgement as we do from the best of our party when their Tenet is represented to us aberring from the rule of Gods Word and dissenting from the Articles of Religion consented unto by the Provincial Convocations of the Church We will then object to him and his party that which they cannot disown unless they disown their Faith and Religion since their Faith and Religion depend upon the Popes Decrees and that so strongly and with such a spirit of delusion that the most pestilent opinions pass with them for Evangelical Truths and the most abominable actions for patterns of Holiness if they be once marked with that stamp according to Bellarmines sentence which no Romanist hath yet disallowed for any thing I know If the Pope did Bellarm. lib. 4. de Pontifice ca. 5. Si Papa erraret in praecipiendo vitia vel prohibendo virtutes teneretur Ecclesia credere vitia esse bona virtutes malas nisi vellet contra conscientiam loqui Idem cap. 31. in Barklaium In bono sensu dedit Christus Petro potestatem faciendi de peccato non peccatum de non peccato peccatum erre in commanding vices or prohibiting vertues the Church should be obliged to believe that vices are good and vertues evil unless she would speak against Conscience And to the same purpose he affirmeth That in good sense Christ hath given to St. Peter the power to make sin to be no sin and that which is no sin to be sin And he takes it for granted That the power which Christ hath given to St. Peter he hath ipso facto given it to the Pope his Successor If then we prove that sedition rebellion and murther of Kings is justified promoted yea and commanded by that Head of their Faith the Papists must either approve it as good and holy or cease to be Papists and learn to have the Faith of the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of glory without respect of persons Since the Roman Church stands much upon her Antiquity we will begin by the ancientest example of approving the murther of Kings that can be charged Ann. Chr. 611. upon the Roman See It is that of Gregory the I. who hearing that Phocas had slain the Emperour Mauritius his Liege Lord having first killed his children before his face and that he had invaded the Empire writ a gratulatory Epistle to that monster where these words are found We are glad that the benignity Greg. 1. lib. 11. Epist 36. Benignitatem pietatis vestrae ad Imperiale fastigium pervenisse gaudemus Laetentur Coeli exultet Terra de benignis actibus vestris universae Reip. populus hilarescat of your Piety hath attained to the Imperial Dignity Let the heavens rojoyce and let the Earth be glad and let the people of the whole Commonwealth be joyful for your gracious deeds The next example shall be that of Gregory the II. who rebelled against his Sovereigne the Emperour Ann. Chr. 726. Leo Isaurus and made Rome and the Roman Dutchy do the same And while the Emperour was sore afflicted with the wars of the Saracens in the East he made himself Lord of that part of his Masters Dominions in Italy for which Sigonius giveth an admirable Sigonius Hist de Regno Italiae lib. 3. Ita Roma Romanusque Ducatus à Graecis ad Romanum Pontificem propter nesandam eorum haeresim impietatemque pervenit reason That Rome and the Roman Dutchy were lost by the Grecians and got by the Pope of Rome by reason of their wicked heresie A strange kind of penance from a Pastor to turn the sinner out of his house and possess himself of it That wicked heresie of Leo Isaurus was That he prohibited the adoration of Images and pulled them down every where For that Heresie and Impiety the holy Father Gregory the II. imposed this penance upon the Emperour He made him lose his Estate and himself seized upon it This is the beginning of the Popes Temporal Principality This is the Title whereby he holds Rome and the Territory of it to this day even plain Rebellion and Tyrannical Invasion of his Sovereigns Estate and Dominion The next Successor of Gregory the II. was Gregory the III. of whom Platina writeth thus This Pope as soon as he attained to the Papal Platina in Greg.
A VINDICATION OF THE SINCERITY OF THE Protestant Religion In the Point of Obedience to SOVEREIGNES Opposed To the Doctrine of Rebellion authorised and practised by the Pope and the Jesuites In Answer to a Jesuitical Libel Entituled PHILANAX ANGLICVS By PETER DU MOULIN D. D. Canon of Christ-Church Canterbury one of His Majesties Chaplains LONDON Printed by I. Redmayne for John Crook at the Ship in St Pauls Church-yard 1664. Imprimatur Ex Aedib Lambeth Nov. 19. 1663. Geo. Stradling S. T. P. Rever in Christo Pat. Dom. Gilb. Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacr. Domest To the Most Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Archbishop of Canterbury his GRACE Primate of all England and Metropolitan my most Honoured Diocesan and Visitor My LORD AN Adversary of the Truth and therefore Yours hath lately offered to your Grace the same abuse as the Roman Souldiers did to the Lord Jesus For as they arrayed him in Royal Scarlet bowed the Knee before him and said to him Hail King of the Jews but at the same time spit upon him and smote him on the head This enemy who is also a Roman Souldier clotheth your Grace with high praises and makes a profound obeysance to your Place and Merits in an Epistle Dedicatory But by the same Epistle he puts under your Graces Protection a charge of Rebellion against our Catholick Orthodox Church and an Apologie for the Doctrine of the Jesuites This is stroaking and striking together No blame is so disgraceful as such praises So did the Devil call Christ the Son of the living God to disgrace him by his Testimony and make him to be taken for one of his Confederates The man never appearing to own his work seems to acknowledge that neither his person nor his work deserveth the notice of the world Yet I thought it necessary to let the world know what a cheat is put upon the Readers by this childe of darkness who being altogether unknown to your Grace as your self were pleased to express unto me beareth himself for your ancient Acquaintance and claims your Patronage while he disgraceth your Person and revileth your Doctrine Neither doth the Libel being but an ignorant scolding deserve an answer but that the man recompenceth his shallow learning with his superlative malice making use of this conjuncture when the minds of loyal subjects are exulcerated by their late and long sufferings by rebellious Zelots under pretence of Religion to make the sufferers to fall out with Religion it self These are the depths of Satan who knows perfectly how to steer the spirits by the Rudder of their most sensible Interesses and at this time labours to drown the too remiss sense of holy Belief in the quick resentments of personal oppression Blessed be God that he is come short of his aim in this attempt and that this Libeller by his Imposture hath only stirred the just indignation of good Christians in whom the interess of Gods truth and glory takes place before all personal concernments Himself might have bin an example of that just severity which he commends in your Grace if he had been as bold to Present the Book as audacious to Dedicate it to so great a Patron I cannot but have recourse unto the same Patron which he hath chosen for his untruths to protect the confutation of them Knowing that the Vindication of the Truth is in its right place being put under your Graces protection in whose shadow the Church rejoyceth as of the gracious Patron of Piety and Vertue the Incourager of Goodness the Maintainer of the Orthodox Faith and in that respect the right Arm of the great Defender of the same That your Government may be blessed unto the Church and Prosperous and Honourable unto your Self is the fervent prayer My LORD Of Your GRACES Most dutiful and humblest Servant PETER DU MOULIN To the Roman Catholicks of His Majesties Dominions My Lords and Gentlemen THe Adversary against whom I appear having laid a Charge of Rebellion against a sort of Protestants in his Title page hath in his Book brought the generality of Protestants under that Indictment I will not imitate his unsincerity by laying that charge proper to the Court of Rome and the Jesuites upon all the Roman Catholicks knowing the Loyalty of many of them with whose acquaintance I am honoured and making use in this Treatise of the Testimony of great Persons and whole Courts and Societies of the Roman profession against the precepts of Disloyalty enjoyned by the Roman Court and acted by the Jesuites For to these only I profess that my present opposition is limitted Only I will be here your humble Suitor That since the Pope is called by Cardinal Bellarmine The a Epist ad Blackwell Head of the Faith and b Praefat. ad lib. de summo Pontisice The Fundamental Stone of Sion you be pleased to consider seriously how taking the Popes sense and authority for the foundation of your Faith in this point can consist with that Honour and Loyalty which you harbour in your generous Breasts And how you that venture your lives so freely for the Defence of your King can acknowledge the power which the Pope assumeth of disposing of the Crowns and Lives of Kings and absolving you from the duty of your Allegience when he thinks good Certainly when you have weighed this in the Ballance of Conscience and sound Judgement you shall finde your selves hedged in within this Dilemma Either to cease to be good subjects or to acknowledge that the Pope can erre even when he speaks and makes Decrees from his Chair Of which Truth if you be once perswaded your way is open to know more Truth That our faith may be setled upon that Truth which makes us free we must call upon the Joh. 8. 32. assistance of the God of Truth and prepare for it a meek docible and unprejudiced spirit which are qualities altogether remote from the furious and contumelious Adversary whom I take in hand in this Treatise Yet since they are not opprobrious terms but clear proofs that are most offensive to the accused I cannot deny that I have been more offensive to him then he to the Protestants God govern his Catholick Church with the Spirit of Truth and Peace and convert with his blessings those that curse us So prayeth My Lords and Gentlemen Your most humble servant in the Lord Iesus our Common Saviour Peter Du Moulin Preface The Designe Style and Genius of that Libel Observations upon the Epistle and Prefaces THe licentiousness of the Press hath long since beaten me to that patience to let others speak contenting my self to think Looking upon the eagerness of some men to confute all untruths that appear abroad as a relick of Knight-Errantry which obliged the Knights to redress all the wrongs that were done in the world But my patience was overcome by the bold and pernicious untruths vented in a Libel tending to no less then the rooting out of Protestants out of all States
III. and absolved his subjects from all Allegiance to him in consequence of that Bull many of the French rebelled against their King and he wasslain upon that account by a Dominican Friar Which when this Pope heard he commended the action highly in a full Consistory at Rome and forbad that any funeral rites should be celebrated for him Which funeral rites usually celebrated at Rome for departed Princes consisting most in prayer for their souls it appeareth that his Holinesse was not contented that he had slain that King by his Bull but would also damne his soul Gregory the XIV excommunicated by his Bulls Henry the IV. of France forbidding all Peers Nobles Cities and Commons to yield him obedience and declaring him incapable of the Crown as an Heretick and relapse But that Bull was by the Court of Parliament then sitting at Tours condemned to be torn and burnt by the Hang-man Clement the VIII did the same over again and excommunicated Henry The Bull was condemned as the other to be burnt by the hand of the Hang-man But the effect of these Bulls appeared by the attempts against the Kings life which soon after followed first by a woman next by Peter Barriere and again by John Chastel all denying him to be King because he was not absolved by the Pope Neither did the effects of these Bulls cease after that the King was absolved by his Holinesse For by them the King got his death Ravilliac who killed him could alledge them when he was examined and say that the King was an Heretick in his heart and deserved to be slain as an enemy of the Church Paul the V. was as turbulent as his predecessors as he shewed it in his insolent and impertinent quarrel with the Venetians because they had stopt by Edict the giving of Lands to the Church whereby the State lost many tributes and services He threatned them of Excommunication if they did not recal that Law And upon their maintaining of it he excommunicated them and put their State in Interdict But it took no effect for none of their Clergy would or durst obey it the Jesuites onely excepted who therefore were expelled out of their dominions They condemned the Popes Bull by Edict and forbad the bringing of it into their Territory upon pain of hanging Neither did they give any satisfaction to the Pope when the businesse came to an Arbitrement but forced him to make amends to himself and to come to their terms In the beginning of this Popes reigne was detected that Treason not to be matcht in any age for cruelty and depth of villany the Gunpowder-plot to have destroyed in one blow the King the Parliament the Judges of the Land and all the flowre and strength of the Kingdome of England This horrid Treason was the effect of the several Bulls of the Pope before the Reigne of our gracious King James of glorious memory who coming into his Kingdome of England found it lying under a Papal Interdict and himself excluded from the Crown by a Bull sent into England a little before the death of Queen Elizabeth whereby all that are not Roman Catholicks are declared incapable of and excluded from the Succession of which his Majesty complains in his Apology And that Bull was produced in the Indictment of the Jesuite Garnet as the principal motive of the Gunpowder Treason This gave occasion to the Oath of Supremacy set forth by the King and his Parliament then sitting for the security of his Majesties Life and Dignity wherein it is required of all to whom it is administred to acknowledge his Majesty to be the lawful King of the Realmes of England Scotland and Ireland and that the Pope hath no right to depose him of his Kingdoms or dispense his Subjects from their obedience to him Also that they abhorre as impious and heretical this doctrine That Princes excommunicated by the Pope may justly be deposed or slain by their owne Subjects This Oath being presented to the Roman Catholicks some of them made no difficulty to take it among others Blackwell the Arch-priest Whereupon the Pope sent Apostolical Letters into England declaring that Dated Sept. 22. 1606. this Oath could not be taken with a safe conscience and exhorting the English to suffer all kinds of torments and death it self rather then to offend Gods Majesty by such an Oath To imitate the constancy of other English Martyrs To have their loins girt about with vertue to put on the Brest-plate of righteousnesse and take the Buckler of Faith He tells them that God who hath begun in them that good work will perfect it and will not suffer them to be Orphans c. And he injoyneth them to observe diligently the precepts contained in the Letters which Clement the VIII his predecessor had written a little before to Mr. George Arch-priest of England By which Letters all Princes of a Religion contrary to the Roman are excluded from the Crown of England These Letters whereby the English were exhorted to be Martyrs of the Popes Sovereignty in England and to make it an Article of their faith which they must signe with their blood that the Pope hath power to depose Princes and expose them to be expelled and slain by their own subjects did not receive that entertainment which he expected among the English of his Religion For some rejected them as supposititious forged by the Hereticks to draw persecution upon them and kindle their Kings wrath against them he being already justly provoked to revenge by the late conspiracy The Pope hearing of this sends other and more express letters Dated Aug. 23. 1607. into England to expostulate with the Roman Catholicks saying That he wondred at their doubting of the truth of the Apostolick letters to dispense themselves upon that pretence from obeying his commandments And therefore he declareth That those Letters were written by himself not only motu proprio ex certa scientia by his own motion and certain knowledge but also after a long and grave deliberation enjoyning them again to obey those Letters because such is his pleasure To these letters which set up rebellion with a high hand as an Article of the Roman Faith were joyned letters of Cardinal Bellarmine to Blackwell the Archpriest wherein he chides him bitterly for taking the Oath which under colour of modifications had no other end but to transport the Popes authority to a Successor of Henry the VIII And by the examples of his Predecessors he exhorteth him to defend the Popes primacy whom he calleth The Head of the Faith Of this Oath thus prohibited by the Pope and cryed down by Bellarmine the Jesuite Becanus saith That both of them the Pope and Bellarmine Beean de dissidio Anglic. Vterque negat salva conscientia praestari posse hoc juramentum quia abnegarent fi-Catholicam deny that it may be taken with a safe Conscience because by taking it the Catholick Faith is denyed Is it then an