in his garment and on his high King of Kings and Lord of Lords Isa 33.22 The Lord is our King he will save us Psal 2.6 I am made by him a King over Sion his holy hill and a great many more of the same nature These say they and the like places are both plain in themselves and plainly expounded of a temporal regal power by the Fathers To which purpose they bring Theophylact expounding that to the Heb. whom he made Heir of all things that is made Lord of the whole World but how did he make him Lord Namely as man in the second Psalm he speaks to him Ask of me and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy Inheritance And St. Anselm upon the same place Whom the Father appointed according to the humanity the immutable Heir of all things that is possessor of all creatures And Haymo upon the same place too God the Father apointed his Son Heir of all things that is of the whole World or all creatures not onely according to the Divinity in which he is coeternal to his Father and coequal in the Omnipotence of the Deity and in which he eternally possesses all things with his Father but rather according to the humanity assum'd by the word he is appointed Lord and Heir over all creatures as God the Father promis'd him saying Ask of me c. And the Son himself rising from the dead speaks thus in the person of the humanity All power is given me in Heaven and in Earth Eusebius Emissenus He who according to his Divinity had alwayes with the Father and Holy Ghost power over all things now also according to his humanity has receiv'd power over all things as Man He who lately suffer'd let him Rule both in Heaven and in Earth and be believed the God and Lord not of the Jews onely but of all Nations L. 2. Cont. Parmen Optatus against the Donatists Why do you break such a promise and confine to a kind of Prison the vast extent of Kingdoms why do you strive to hinder so much goodness why are you against our Saviours merits Permit the Son to enjoy what was granted permit the Father to perform what he promised Why do you set bounds and fix Limits when the whole Earth was promised by the Father There is not any thing in any part of the Earth which seems exempt from his Possession The whole Earth with its Nations were given him These and the the like places are the chief supports of the affirmative opinion for I omit their Reasons not onely because a man who were strongly bent upon it may invent specious pretexts almost for any thing and they seem to me no other but because I take questions of Faith not properly to belong to the decision of meer Reason I mean in this manner that People should rashly determine by their ill grounded reasonings what is fitting or not fitting for God to do We are to learn of our Fathers and the Church what he has done and not by Airy speculations determine what he should do If this Doctrine hath been delivered to our Fore-Fathers we shall sure enough receive it from them but if we do not it will hardly belong to Faith even though it could be proved true In the mean time those who maintain the negative bring particular Answers to all these places the substance whereof devolves to this that the Kingdom and Regal power attributed to Christ in the Scripture is to be understood of his Spiritual Kingdom the Church unless where his person is spoken of as comprehending the divine as well as humane nature in which Cases Regal power and all that can be attributed to God may justly be affirmed of him 'T were to write a Book instead of a Letter to dilate them all particularly and when all is done this is the substance But then on their side they alleadge Scripture and Fathers in my opinion much more convincing And first they affirm the question is expresly and plainly decided by Christ himself Joh. 18.36 When being askt by Pilate if he were a King he denies it not but withal affirms his Kingdom is not of this World And methinks people might take his word and cease to dispute of what he so plainly determined for I cannot think otherwise but this Answer meets the difficulty in the Face and so reserves whether the right of omnipotence or spiritaal Regality as very positively to exclude Temporal power They alledge again Luke 12.14 Who has made me Judge or Divider betwixt you Our blessed Saviour was moved by one who heard him and perhaps believed in him to cause one Brother to divide an inheritance with the other And he not onely refuses the motion but says in a phrase usual in Scripture of denying by interrogation it was a matter in which he had nothing to do Now if Christ were truly a Temporal King 't is hard to imagine how rendring Justice to his Subjects who demanded it at his hands and determining emergent Controversies in which the very Office of a King does in a great measure consist should not belong to him I hove nothing to do with Possessions and I am no Temporal King to seem equivalent They alleadge besides Jo. 6.15 where Christ perceiving the multitude were resolved to make him King fled from them and hid himself Put him to have received temporal Dominion over all the World from his Father and 't will be hard to unriddle why he used it not in this occasion His Subjects more disposed to obey him they were willing they were forward to do their parts what can be said why he did not do his and govern them I said before and I cannot but repear it 'T is as much the duty of a King to govern as of Subjects to be governed and I cannot for my life imagine any other reason why he should refuse to govern then this that he was no temporal King If it may be permitted me to speak freely this position of temporal regal Power in Christ seems to me to include both nonsense and blasphemy For Nonsense it is to put a Power in him to no purpose an useless Metaphysical potentia never reduced into Act and blasphemy it is to say he was deficient in his duty and how that position will get clear of either of these absurdities I can by no means understand Other places of Scripture they bring but these are the most material Now because a Catholick cannot be a Catholick who maintains a position directly contrary to Scripture for neither he nor his position would be endured those of the other side have invented several Senses which they give to the places alledged and though those Senses seem to me full of Nonsense yet I cannot but commend in the Authors that they chuse rather to contradict common Sense then Scripture But do you Judge My Kingdom is not of this World that is say they 't is not by way of Election or Succession
seldom running in the School Phrase of all Four The Metaphor is generally and more fitly understood so that by Wolves are meant Persecutors by Rams the Prelates of the Church and by Sheep the rest of the Faithful But allowing him to use the Similitude as he pleases and apply it after his own fashion to talk vvith him in his own language they observe many differences betwixt a figurative and real Wolf a figurative and real Sheep and many defects in the Similitude and Reasons vvhy the Argument concludes not even keeping vvithin the terms of the Metaphor But to consider the Thing Here say they the Church is compar'd to a Flock as it vvas before to a Commonwealth and may to be a City or Family or Ship or Army or twenty things more All these several Comparisons make no difference in the things compared For whether you consider the Pope as Prince of a Spiritual Commonwealth or Shepheard of a Spiritual Flock his Power as Prince is not different from his Power as Shepheard but the same and if you consider it according to all the Comparisons of which it is capable 't is still one and the same and that a Spiritual Power Wherefore all the Similitudes that are or can be will never make it other than it is and the Pope whether he be lookt upon as a Prince or a Shepheard or a Pilot or however he be considered can do no more than a Spiritual Prince and a Spiritual Shepheard c. Now when Bellarmin Argues the Pope is a Shepheard and a Shepheard may drive away or kill a Wolf and an Infidel Prince is a Wolf all this say they even allowing the Comparison is to be understood of Spiritual driving away and Spiritual killing But when he infers Therefore he may Depose him he passes from Spirituals to Temporals and leaves his Allegory and the truth too The Pope may Admonish and Command the Flock not to follow the Wolf in what he is a Wolf but in what he is not a Wolf but a Shepheard himself what ever the Pope say to the contrary they are bound to obey the Power which God has set over them It is by Divine Law that Subjects obey their Prince and Princes cease not to be Princes by turning Infidels nor Subjects to be Subjects by becoming or remaining Faithful And that all the Similitudes in the World should dispense with the Law of God Bellarmin may talk as long as he will but they will not believe him For the rest these kind of Arguments if too much credit were given to them would make mad work Every Bishop and every Curate is as truly a Shepheard as the Pope Their Flocks indeed are not so large but they are truly Flocks and suffice to denominate their Governours with propriety Shepheards If this quality enable him who has it to Depose a Prince there is no remedy but every Bishop has Power to Depose the King who is of his Diocess and every Curate him who belongs to his Parish And since Private men have something less Title to their Estates than the King to his Kingdom if Kings be subject to this Power Private men are much more and so because the Argument with a little more stretching would reach to every Sin within a little while every Sinner might be dispossest of his Estate at the pleasure of his Bishop or Curate which in time would make such work that People would go near to hate all Arguments and all Scholars for Bellarmins sake and as the Turks do Forbid all Learning that they may live in Peace and Security Besides if the fancy should take a man to apply this very Allegory to Princes for if it were said to S. Peter Feed my Sheep it was of Cyrus I say to Cyrus Thou art my Shepheard Isay 44. and of David Thou shalt feed my People Israel 1 Paral. 11. and then apply this Notion of the Wolf and furious Ram to a wicked scandalous Pope over whom he must have Power if he cannot otherwise preserve his own Flock Bellarmin must either unravel all he has weav'd here or Princes will have more Power over Bad Popes than he will think fit to allow them In the mean time of the two waies by which he saies in Rom. Pont. his Doctrine may be prov'd Reasons and Examples These are all he produces of the first kind You will judge of them while I pass to the other He brings in all Twelve Two in the Old Law and Ten in the New Those of the Old are Ozias depos'd for Leprosie by Azarias and Athalia by Joiada for Idolatry Of these two one was never Deposed and the other never a Queen but by Usurpation Ozias for his Presumption was miraculously struck with Leprosie and by the Priests according to their duty and the command of the Law put out of the Temple and separated from the People but for the rest continued King till his dying day his Son supplying his place in what his Disease permitted him not to interpose himself Athalia endeavoured to settle her self in the Kingdom by the Murther of all the Children of Ochozias but was mistaken Joas was saved by his Aunt Jeboseth and by the honesty and credit of her Husband Joiada put in Possession of the Regal Dignity whereof the Right had been in him all the while So that the Argument from this Instance stands thus The High Priest amongst the Jews was instrumental in placing his true Soveraign in his Throne therefore the High Priest among the Christians may tumble a lawful Soveraign out of his Throne which for a man of Bellarmins Vogue is something odly Argued His Third Example and First from the New Law is the dealing of S. Ambrose with the Emperour Theodosius whom after a Cruelty commanded by him in a transport of Anger he admitted not into the Church till he had Repented and make satisfaction I know not but methinks he makes the most unpromising entry into his business that may be In the former Instances one had no Deposition the other no Lawful Prince to be Depos'd and in this there is neither Deposition nor Pope to make it S. Ambrose was Bishop of Milan not of Rome and I hope he will not extend this Deposing Power to every Bishop However what he did not only every Bishop but every Ghostly Father may do both lawfully and laudably It is the Office of Churchmen to induce Sinners to Repentance if they can and perswade them to those Remedies which may hinder them from relapsing into the same faults And they have here the Zeal of an excellent Prelate successful with an excellent Emperour for their encouragement and this is all I can perceive in this passage The Fourth is a Priviledge of S. Gregory the Great to a certain Monastery in which there is this Clause If any King Bishop Judge c. violate this Decree of what Dignity or Degree soever he be let him be depriv'd of his Honour This they take to be
Vicar I understand now the reason St. Peter commands Christians to be obedient to the Authority of Heathen Princes and Governours because he knew very well how they came by it For though all their power before was usurp'd and tyrannical yet after they had deriv'd it from him it became a lawful Authority If our wicked Politicians be not confounded with this I know not what will do it I am sure I am to meet with such stuff in a Church which boasts of purity of her doctrine and which cherishes the Authors not only as good Christians but learned men and Masters of Christianity Lael Zecch Tract Theol. P. 81. Laelius Zecchius tells us that the Pope by the Law of God hath power and temporal dominion over the whole world That the same is prov'd by the words Luk. 22. Behold here are two swords which signifie the power spiritual and temporal and because Christ whose Vicar the Pope is hath both powers according to the words Matt. ult All power is given me in heaven and in earth that thence it may be deduced that the Pope is absolutely Lord of all the Christian world and Kings and Christian Princes are to acknowledge that they hold of him their Empires and Kingdoms and all that are faithful ought to be subject unto him and that as oft as such Princes do any great hurt in the Church the Pope may deprive them of their Kingdoms and transfer their right to others Franciscus Bozius Fran. Boz de temp Eccle. Monarch l. 1. c. 3. p. 52. C. 7. p. 98. That the supreme temporal Jurisdiction throughout all the world doth belong to S. Peter's Successors so as one and the same is the Hierarch and Monarch in all things That Christ left the Church to be govern'd by the best form of government but the best form of government is absolute Monarchy even in all temporal things therefore Christ left his Church to be so govern'd That the Keys of Heaven were given to Peter L. 2. c. 14. L. 3. c. 1. p. 894. therefore of all the earth That the right of dominion and relation of Infidels may justly by the sentence and ordination of the Church be taken away because Infidels by reason of their infidelity deserve to lose their power over the faithful C. 14. p. 530. c. 14. p. 530. That the Church hath receiv'd that power over Nations which Christ according to his humane nature reciev'd of his Father but Christ receiv'd absolutely of his Father all power in temporalibus therefore the Church likewise receiv'd it by participation of his fulness c. 16. p. 537. That the supreme coactive power in all temporal things belongeth to Ecclesiastical persons by divine Law revealed and expressed in the Scriptures That Kings P. 676. annointed with holy Oil are called as Vassals of the Church That by reason of the supreme Monarchy in all things L. 5. p. 823. temporal laws may be made and Kingdoms taken away for just causes Henricus Gandavensis if Carrerius cite him truly Car. p. 28. That by the Law of God and nature the Priesthood doth over-top the Empire and both Jurisdiction over Spiritualties and Temporalties and the immediate execution likewise of them both depend upon the Priesthood both by the Law of God and Nature Carr. p. 130. Antoninus That they who say the Pope hath dominion over all the world in Spirituals but not in Temporals are like the Counsellors of the King of Syria who said the Gods of the Mountains are their Gods and therefore they have overcome 〈◊〉 let us fight with them in the Plains and Valleys where their Gods dwell not and we shall prevail against them Carr. p. 130. 3 Reg. 20. Augustinus Triumphus That the Son of God hath declar'd the altitude of the Ecclesiastical power being as it were founded upon a Rock to be above all principality and power that unto it all knees should bend of things in heaven in earth and under the earth or in hell 'T is come at last this infernal power 't was only long of a bad memory we had it not before P. 131. That Secular Powers were not necessary but that Princes might perform that through terror of discipline which the Priest cannot effect by power of doctrine and that therefore if the Church could punish evil men Imperial and Secular principality were not necessary the same being included potentially in the principality Apostolical And why cannot the Church punish evil men if both Jurisdictions and the immediate execution of both be in her But we understand him well enough when time serves the conclusion shall be that Princes are unnecessary because the Church by her double power can do the business of the world without them And so farewel useless Princes Aug. de Anc. de Potest Ecc. Q. 39. a. 2. Farther he tells us that Imperial or Regal power is borrowed from the Papal or Sacerdotal for as much as concerneth the formality of dignity and recieving the authority Pretty formalities those Q. 45. a. 2. That the Pope hath Jurisdiction over all things as will temporal as spiritual through the world That he may absolve Subjects from the Oath of Allegiance Q. 46. a. 3. That upon just cause he may set up a King in every Kingdom L. Conr. in templ om judic l. 2 c. 1. S 4. for he is the Overseer of all Kingdoms in Gods stead as God is the Supervisor and maker of all Kingdoms Lancecelot Conradus That He may appoint Guardians and Assistants to Kings and Emperors when they are insufficient and unfit for government That he may depose them and transfer their Empires and Dominions from one line to another Celsus Mancinus Cel. Manc l c. 1. That in the highest Bishop both the Powers and Jurisdictions are spiritual and temporal and that as he is the most eminent person of all men in spiritual power Th. Boz de jur stat l. 1. c. 6. p. 37. P. 52. so he is in temporal Thomas Bozius That Kings and principal Seculars are not immediately of God but by the Interposition of Holy Church and her chief Bishops That warlike and military compulsive power is given to the Church over Kings and Princes That if it be found sometimes that certain Emperors have given some temporalities to the highest Bishops as Constantine gave to Silvester this is not to be understood that they gave any thing which was their own but restor'd that which was unjustly and tyrannically taken from the said Bishops Ap. Carrer P. 132. Rodoricus Sancius That there is one Principlity and one supreme-Prince over all the world who is Christ's Vicar according to that of Dan. c 8. He hath given him power and honour and rule and all people and tongues shall serve him and that in him therefore is the fountain and spring of all principality and from him all other powers do flow P. 131. 132 That
I think will be so madly blasphemous to question the absolute Soveraignty and Omnipotent power of God over all things But the same person was man too and 't is from that formality the Pope claims for suppose 't is no less impiety to affirm that what belongs to the Divine Nature is not communicable to any to whom that Nature is not communicated then 't is to deny of the Divine Nature that which truly belongs to it And this Bellarmin well understood when he argues thus De Rom. Pont. l. 5. l. 4. Christ as man while he liv'd on Earth neither had nor would have Dominion meerly temporal over any Province or Town But the Pope is the Vicar of Christ and represents Christ to us as he was while he liv'd amongst men Wherefore the Pope as Christ's Vicar and consequently as Pope has not Dominion meerly temporal over any Province or Town Speaking now of Christ precisely as Man those who attribute temporal power to him and make him a secular King go one of these two ways They either alledge right of Succession by descent from David or a particular grant from God the Father in whose power it being to dispose of all Kingdoms they affirm he has transfer'd this Right upon his Son as Man Of these two the first is hard to prove and in my opinion signifies nothing when 't is prov'd The descent indeed of Christ from and that by two several beanches is recorded in the Gospel but descent gives a tittle to none but the nearest of the descent and that Christ was the nearest is so far from appearing that I know not how it possibly should 'T is true that Solomon and his Posterity Reigned to Jeconias but of him the Prophet Hier. 22.30 Foretold there should not be of his seed a man who should sit upon the Throne of David and have power longer in Juda So that the Succession of that Regal Line of David seems ended in him 'T is true Zedechias or Mathanias Reigned 11 years after him who was not of his seed for he was his Uncle but from him to Aristobulus of the Race of the Machabees who first reassum'd the Regal Diadem there was not any King at all amongst the Jews That Nathan or any of his Posterity either Reign'd or had right to Reign nothing appears and much less that Christ was the nearest of the descendents from either that or the other branch In so much darkness I think 't is evident there can be no clear title However I conceive another thing is clear which even supposing that Christ were next in descent to David would quite take away all Title to his Kingdom and that is that in his time the Kindom was legally and justly translated from the Family of David to the Asmoneans For certainly to affirm that the Machabees and their Successors who with excellent vertue recover'd the lost Scepter and setled it in their own Family were all Intruders and Usurpers and Tyrants would be a wild and preposterous assertion and such an one as would unsettle all the translations of Empires which concur in the course of History whereof few perhaps have been made with greater virtue or more justice What King can be secure of his Title if the Asmoneans were no Rightful King And if they were descent from David gives Christ no more title to the Throne of David then Signior Paleologo far be all irreverence from the comparison has to the Empire of Greece or Goodman Plantagenet to the Crown of England A title therefore by descent seems very hard to prove but though it were prov'd I think there is so little got by the bargain that it might have been e'en as well let alone For right to the Kingdom of David is but right to the Kingdom of David and I suppose the Pope will not agree to have his Authority confin'd to the Guetto at Rome and be put to the trouble of Assembling the dispers'd Jews that he may have over whom to Reign and wringing out the ancient Kingdom of David from the present Possessors that he may have where to Reign He knows well enough the strength and stability of long possession and I dare say will not change his spiritual title at Rome for the best and fairest temporal title which can be made him to Hierusalem and where else the right of David can give him any interest 't is hard to imagine The other Plea is a Grant from his Father who may undoubtedly dispose of Kingdoms and every thing else as he pleases But his usual way of giving Kingdoms is to put those to whom he gives them into actual possession by Election Succession the Sword or other secondary means To give bare titles without other fruit is a course not suitable to the method of his proceeding Lawyers indeed have invented a distinction betwixt the Dominion and usus fructus of a thing and the distinction is useful here below but I suspect distinctions are strangers in Heaven and that plain dealing providence deals little in Chican However it be being resolv'd not to penerrate into the depth of the question my self I shall onely observe to you what people say on both sides and leave you to judge This short reflexion by the way I suppose I may irreprovably make that if the Father made any such grant the Son was not ignorant of it And if he knew such power was given him and yet refused to use it I perceive not how he will be excus'd from the blame of not doing what belong'd to him to do A King certainly is as much oblig'd to govern as a Subject to obey and since 't is manifest blasphemy to say Christ was deficient in any point of duty this in reference to my dulness is unavoidable Christ did not perform the duty of a temporal King therefore he was no temporal King But these are onely my thoughts by the by what people say on both sides is this Those who would have Christ a temporal King alledge in proof these places of Scripture which speak of his power in general and expresly apply the name of King to him in particular Such as Heb. 1.2 Whom he made Heir of all things by whom also he made the Worlds Heb. 2.7 Thou hast Crowned him with honour and glory and set him over all the works of thy hands For in that he subjected all things he left nothing not subject to him 1 Cor. 5.24 When he shall have evacuated all Principality and Power and Vertue Mat. 28.18 All power is given me in Heaven and in Earth Jo. 23.3 Knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands Jo. 5.22 For the Father judges no man but has given all judgment to the Son he has given him power to judge because he is the son of man Apoc. 17.14 They shall fight with the Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome them because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings And again 19.16 And he has written
me to think they do I have shew'd you what the Sentiments of the Fathers and the Church are for the rest it belongs not to me This which I have done being only to obey your Commands and testifie the power you have over Your c. The Seventh and Eighth OF THE Controversial LETTERS OR Grand Controversie Concerning The pretended Temporal Authority of POPES over the whole Earth And the True Sovereign of KINGS within their own respective Kingdoms Between two English Gentlemen The one of the Church of England The other of the Church of Rome LONDON Printed for Henry Brome and Benjamin Tooke at the Gun at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard 1673. FRIEND I Know not how it happens but the more you shew me methinks the less I see While I read your Letters I find not what to except against yet when I look off I remain still unsatisfi'd That there should be a Spiritual Power distinct from the Temporal is plainly necessary in it self and own'd by us We go not to Westminster Hall for remission of our sins or to hear the Word of God preach'd or receive the Sacraments These things belong to Spiritual Magistrates amongst whom the Chief with us is the Bishop of Canterbury as with you the Bishop of Rome And since for Orders sake and the nature of Government a Chief there must be It matters not much whether as one wittily said the top link of the Spiritual Chain be fastned to the Chair of Canterbury or of Rome So the Temporal Primacy be undisturb'd and undisturbable by the Spiritual it seems all one vvhether have it I mean in point of Safety for true or false is another question And truly I neither see how your Spiritual Primacy should disturb it if all be true you say nor why I should doubt of the truth of what you say while I consider you say nothing of your own head but bring such Vouchers for every thing that I think your Church cannot say otherwise unless she throw off that Reverence which with so much ostentation she professes to have for Antiquity And yet of necessity there must be more in it The mischiefs against which I would be secur'd have actually happened Princes have been deposed and the world has been too much concerned in the effects of this Power to be ignorant of it Our own Princes have not been exempt from attempts of this nature and the hazard the nation ran in 88. is not yet out of our memory So that manifestly either you believe one thing and do another or you have not inform'd me truly but covered an ugly face with a handsom vizar Truly I believe better of your candour than to suspect you deceive me by design yet certainly things are not so cleer and smooth of your side as you would make me believe To read your Papers one would think nothing could be more innocent than your doctrine in this Point yet the vvorld is witness of doings far from Innocent I must confess I was sometime sufficiently perplext to unriddle this mystery But at last I remembred Bellarmin and vvhen I reflected on his Indirect and in ordine ad Spiritualia Power methought I had found the clew to guide me out of this Labyrinth That distinction does it Friend and in truth I never so well understood the vertue of Distinctions before for by the help of this I perceive you may say enough to pass for honest men and in the mean time reserve as much liberty as heart can vvish to play the knave Pardon my bluntness 't is without malice I assure you but I am too much intent upon the Question to be choice of my vvords especially to you and consider a little You have told me the Spiritual and Civil Power are distinct that the Popes Power is Spiritual and is not Coactive Why Bellarmin and any that follows him will grant all this But if vve conclude thence That the Pope has nothing to do vvith Temporals they vvill not suffer us but say His Power is indeed of its own nature Spiritual and directly regards only the good of Souls but if Temporals concern that good His Power is extended to them too not directly as if they were its proper object but indirectly as they collaterally fall in and are joyn'd to that which is its proper object So that they intend not that any part of that Authority which I conceive prejudicial to Princes and inconsistent with Government should be taken from him but plainly seek to establish it though another vvay and whereas Others go plainly to work and tell us without more adoe That the Pope is the only Supream Monarch of the Earth These go a little about the bush and say indeed He is not directly Lord of Temporals but come at last to the same and tell us He may as uncontroulably dispose of them as if he were If this be true all you have said is to no purpose and all you can say while you stick to this will not absolve you from inconsistency with Civil Government For 't is a plain case If the Pope may interpose in the disposition of Temporals as often as they have relation to Spirituals that He may interpose alwaies Since of necessity they must and cannot but be alwaies ordered either well or ill and both cases belong to the concern of the Soul And then 't is all one as some body in this case handsomly said whether my eyes be put out by a direct stroke of a Tennis Ball or by Bricol William Rufus was as mortally wounded by the Arrow which glanced as if it had been shot directly at him If Princes may lawfully be depos'd and their Subjects absolv'd from their Allegiance and oblig'd to obey the commands of another and that in Temporals they are no longer Sovereign nor absolute even in Temporals and whether the Power above them be Direct or Indirect Spiritual or not Spiritual so it be a Power and can act they are alwaies unsafe Pray Friend let me have no dodging Tell me plainly Is this the Doctrine of your Church or is it not If it be unless you can shew me That those can be good Subjects and true to their Prince who acknowledge another Power which they are to obey against their Prince and how that Prince is Supream in Temporals who has another above him whose Commands he is to obey in the disposition of those Temporals or if he do not his Subjects are not to obey him I must for all you have said continue in my first thoughts and not believe you tolerable in any Commonwealth If it be not true I think you would deserve very well of your Church to free her from the scandal which the credit of those who hold this and the countenance she gives them brings upon her In all events I beseech you speak plainly for else I must needs think either that your Church teaches you to hold what you are asham'd to own or vvhich is
that business none was better satisfi'd then the guilty and punisht Emperor himself who more lov'd and honour'd S. Ambrose ever after And 't is likely if all spiritual Princes would imitate the zeal of that excellent Prelate and preserving the respect due to the dignity of secular powers strive only to redress the errors of their frailty that Temporal Princes would imitate the Piety of that excellent Emperor and there would be never any clashing betwixt them But this by the by I have only to do with the Argument and 't is not the least I have to do to find the force of it For 't is plain the bare words themselves without a comment will not do and Bellarmin has here forgotten to give a comment And so there remains nothing but to rove at random and hope if luck serve to hit right If Bellarmin understand this Decree in that manner in which he understood it who made it Boniface the 8 as far as can be gathered by those who writ of him was perswaded he was vested in a Power as unlimited and absolute as the wildest of Canonists ever fancied that he was the only universal Monarch and all Princes his subjects without more ado You remember how he writes to the King of France We would have you know you are subject to us both in spirituals and temporals and take for Hereticks who think otherwise Now there is one in my opinion very good reason why Bellarmin should not understand the Decree in this manner and that is because he thinks that sence not true and maintains the Pope has no such power and the Canonists are out who give it him If he will understand it as Clement 5 seems to understand it you must pardon me if I entertein you with seemings we must rove where we can do no better it will amount to no more than bare spiritual power as indeed the words themselves carry no farther We neither will nor intend says he that any prejudice be done to the King or Kingdom of France by the Decree in question nor that the King Kingdom or Inhabitants be more subject to the Church of Rome then they were formerly but that all things be in the same state in which they were before the said definition Now one point of the state in which things were before was if we believe the King of France as also Innocent 3 who had declared as much that he was subject in temporals to no man And so there remains only subjection in spirituals in which Clement 5 understood the Decree and challenged to the Church of Rome and this will freely be allow'd to Bellarmin by a great many who for all that will allow no deposition Now because neither of these Comments will fit him as far as I perceive he will hardly find one ready made but must take the pains to make one for himself if he will do any thing And yet when he has done a Comment is one thing and a Text another One is not altogether so current mony as the other Although in this particular his comment must be better mettal then the Text it self or will hardly pass The whole Canon Law the Decrees not only of particular Popes but particular Councils unless in circumstances which happen not in this case are freely and openly deny'd the power to oblige to belief But I will not meddle with this point which would draw on a new and that controversial dispute and I am no man of Controversy What I have sayd is answer enough to an Argument no better prest Yet I shall make one observation more and so take leave of it This Canon according to the declaration of Clement 5 defined nothing new says Bellarmin but only declared the ancient obligation of being subject to the Apostolick Sea Now would I fain understand how we should know by this Canon what that ancient obligation was The question is whether the ancient subjection were in temporals or spirituals And the Canon is declared to define neither the one nor the other but only the ancient obligation and if it define nothing in the question it might very well have been let alone of necessity we must know what this ancient obligation is before we can know what this Canon has defined and then 't is a clear case we can know nothing by the Canon but must depend on another knowledg and by that find out what the Canon sayes If things be left by this Canon as the Pope says they are in the state in which they were before it is not possible to know how this Canon left them but by knowing how they were before See now how well this Canon proves in the Pope a power over temporals which says no more but that he has a power he alwaies had but whether that power be temporal or spiritual is wholly silent 'T is something a new way of arguing to bring us in proof that things are as Bellarmin says they are a Canon which says only they are as they were before and force us to a new search to know how they were before of which we have no intelligence from his Canon but as far as we can have intelligence otherwise have reason to think they were quite contrary to what Bellarmin pretends For the French who took themselves particularly concern'd in this Canon did neither then nor since believe any obligation to be subject in temporals and were unsatisfied till they procur'd this Declaration from Clement 5 that things were as they were before and because this satisfied them 't is in my opinion a strong proof that it was then known there was no subjection in temporals due before However it be the proof from the Canon stands plainly thus You must in vertue of this Canon believe the Pope has power over Temporals because he has a power which by the Canon you cannot know whether it be over temporals or no Or you must know by the Canon the Pope has a temporal Power which whether it be temporal or no you must know from something else then the Canon That is I must know in vertue of the Canon what I cannot know in vertue of the Canon Which proof being that in vertue whereof I know signifies the Canon is a proof which is not a proof The third Argument is from Councils and is thus proposed by Bellarmin We prove it thirdly from the Councils before mentioned whereof the two last were general For how can that be brought into doubt or depend on the opinion of men which general Catholick and lawful Councils approve But these ten Councils and especially the two last of Lateran and Lyons do most evidently teach that temporal Princes may be depos'd by the Pope when the necessity of the Church requires it and consequently that the temporal Power of Princes is subject and subordinate to the spiritual power of Popes In my opinion he might have spared that consequently If lawful general Councils evidently teach Deposition they
of Princes in short how they are not as bad as those who are direct Knaves These are the things in which alone the world is concern'd if the two opinions agree in these let them differ in inconsiderable niceties as much as they will they are the same in danger the same in inconsistency with Civil Government and that if you remember was the thing with which we began and where for ought I see we still stick Till I see such a difference I must needs think all you have said no better then pure illusion and all you can say till you say where this difference is will be but to talk learnedly from the purpose For my part I must profess I can find none But because I would be glad to learn of any body I will entreat Bellarmine to tell me what difference he finds and what provision he makes with his learned distinctions for the Security of Princes and Fidelity of Subjects The first which comes in my way is in the state of the Question That the Pope directly and immediately hath not any temporal Power but only spiritual but indirectly at least in vertue of this spiritual Power hath highest or soveraign Power over Temporals And because Directly's and Indirectly's should break no squares he leaves them out against Barclay Cap. 12. when he had a mind to speak properly When we speak properly says he we say the Pope has Power in or over Temporals but not Temporal Power as Pope Now to acknowledge my ignorance I must confess I am quite gravel'd at very first and cannot for my life imagine what kind of thing this only Spiritual and not Temporal Power should be which yet is highest or soveraign even in Temporals Without doubt vve men of the vvorld are vvonderful ignorant things and if vve but offer to understand any thing these Scholars say 't is odds vve mar all Who of our lovv form but vvould have thought that Povver over Temporals had been Temporal Povver If I mistake not I have heard from some body that had some acquaintance vvith these Scholars that Powers are specifi'd by their Acts which is indeed too high for me It may be to purpose and it may not But I had verily thought that who could do temporal things had temporal power and vvho could do spiritual things spiritual I was out it seems and perceive now that properly speaking 't is otherwise For all that I cannot but think there is such a thing as Temporal Power in the vvorld and if Power in Temporals be not It there remains nothing that I know which can be It but Power in Spirituals and for the same reason Power in Temporals must be Spiritual Power and so Kings because they have to do vvith Temporals have in truth Spiritual Power only vve speak improperly in the vvorld and call it Temporal But this does not fadge neither For then the Pope should be said to have Temporal power for this proper reason because he has power in Spirituals Now I remember me there is a certain Pope vvho says Kings have no Superior in Temporals Inno. 3. C. per Ven. Qui filii sint legit This Barclay objected to Bellarmin and he answers that by Superiour in Temporals is meant a Temporal Superior Now I consider not how vvell this answers Barclay For let the Superiour be a temporal or a spiritual Superiour so he be Superiour in Temporals The King has a Superiour in Temporals But this is not to my purpose I only observe that Bellarmin vvas of the mind vvhen he vvrote this that Superiour in Temporals was all one vvith Temporal Superiour And then I see no reason in the vvorld vvhy power in Temporals should not also be all one vvith Temporal power Certainly since Power makes the Superiour there is as much sympathy betwixt the Superiour and the Power as this comes too But in the name of vvonder vvhat does Power in Temporals signifie and vvhat Temporal Power Bellarmin means the Pope may by his power in Temporals dispose of the temporal thing call'd a Kingdom The Canonists mean some such thing by their Temporal Power By this account both signifie power to dispose of Temporals and methinks 't is no such mortal quarrel vvhether a dog must be said to be beaten vvith a stick or a staff Or are they perhaps mere sounds to vvhich belongs no sence but vvhat they give them as they find convenient for their purpose and so vvhen vve are askt vvhat Temporal or what in Temporals signifies we must answer vvith Montalto What you please Father Never believe me if I can make more of this in Temporals then an Inchanted Castle vvhich houses and entertains the Knight as long as he has use of it and as soon as he is gone vanishes into a pure Temporal Inn. Which way soever I turn me I am quite at a loss so that I think 't is best to give it over and let Bellarmin alone vvith his power over Temporals and no Temporal Power and speak to you in a language vvhich both of us understand Do you in earnest believe there is any such difference betwixt these two that the one makes a good the other a bad Subject And that a King is safe enough as long as his Subjects speak properly Marry if their language once become less exact then let him look to himself Good School-masters are the only Guards if this be true I am afraid to meddle vvith Bellarmin again for vvhether I say I or no 't is odds but I shall be out still But yet I guess he meant his Power in Temporals is truly Power If it be true Power sure there is true obedience due to it And if all Christians are bound to obey him in Temporals Kings can have no Subjects but Infidels unless to be even with the Pope they fall to commanding in Spirituals For if they can command in nothing I do not see how they are Kings But this is but shifting sides and leaves us still vvhere vve vvere Let Bellarmin say vvhat he vvill He vvho has power to command is to be obey'd if the Pope can command in Temporals I must obey him in Temporals And he vvhom I must obey in Temporals is my King and no body else So that the Pope is universal Monarch vvithout more ado and there is no King in the World besides himself For 't is not the proper name of Power but Power which does the business Call it how you vvill properly or improperly if there be a Power in the vvorld vvhich Kings themselves must acknowledge and submit their Crowns and leave their Kingdoms vvhen this Power requires them They are not Kings I mean Soveraigns of vvhom vve only speak And they vvere mightily out vvho said Princes vvere solo Deo minores that they vvere accountable only to him and had none else above them and twenty other such untrue things For Bellarmin has found one that is above them and I fear above God too
depos'd for vvhat no repentance could cure Again in the Nevv Lavv he vvould make us believe Chilperick vvas depos'd for insufficiency Did the Pope admonish him to repent the grievous fault of having so little vvit and allovv him time to provide himself of better brains and better organs and vvhen he found him incorrigible and all persvvasion lost upon him and that say the Pope vvhat he could he vvould not do vvhat he could not do then at last after fruitless and long deluded patience cast him off Wherefore though Bellarmine do require such Formalities as cannot conveniently be spared yet possibly he may not think their necessity so absolute as that the Deposition should be void if they concur not But let him think vvhat he pleases vvhile vvith all his insignificant Buts he preserves this substance that a King may be deposed if instead of three be require three hundred Ceremonies the opinion is still inconsistent vvith Civil Government And for our Case in particular our Soveraign does not think fit to repent vvhat Bellarmine cals Heresie and a deposing fault for this reason because he does not think it a fault and is for that reason very like to be incorrigible in it too and vvhoever thinks he may therefore be deposed is himself pernicious and not to be endured in his Dominions And so much for the taking avvay But. For the giving But he tels us The Pope may also give the Kingdom to another yet not at pleasure to whom he thinks fit for so indeed Kings were but precarious Kings But He is ty'd to the order of Justice whether Succession or Election take place or if there be none can claim then to him whom reason profers I fear the truth of this may be questioned Sure I am that vvhen Q. Elizabeth vvas deposed and her Kingdom given to the Spaniard there vvere better Titles afoot in the vvorld then K. Philips Thanks be to God the Throne of England has not been vacant and the Popes reason never troubled to fill it When Kingdoms are expos'd to prey 't is catch that catch can I see no great order of Justice in that But suppose it vvere true vvhat signifies this order of Justice and vvhat bar to the Popes pleasure in Succession or Election If the next Heir or next Elect be a man vvho pleases not the Pope I suppose he must be pass'd by and so as many as offer till they come at last to some body who is rectus in Curiâ For the first might stand as vvell as any of these vvho I conceive are all in the number of those vvho cannot claim and then vvhat does Succession or Election hinder but the Pope still gives at pleasure since none shall succeed or be elected but vvhom he pleases Again vvhat difference betvvixt giving a Kingdom to vvhom the Pope pleases and to vvhom Reason meaning the Popes Reason prefers Preference of Reason is nothing in the vvorld but that the Pope pleases to think it fitter this man should be prefer'd then the other So that Election and Succession and Reason are nothing in truth but the Popes Pleasure and all that Bellarmine affords us is a meer sound of vvords vvhich signifie nothing and if they did vvere nothing to purpose neither For vve are all this vvhile beside the Cushion It makes nothing I think to the justification of a Robbery that the prey vvas equally shared and vvhen a King is dethroned he is as much dethroned if he be succeeded by the next heir as by a stranger neither do I believe he is much concern'd vvho comes next upon the Stage vvhen his ovvn part is ended Our Question at Present is whether Kings in Bellarmins doctrine be only precarious Kings By the way Precarious is not very currant English I think we should call it holding at will or pleasure or if you will coyn a new word Tenure by Intreaty But however let us keep our Authors word Barclay objects that Bellarmin makes Kings precarious because he allows the Pope to take away and give Kingdoms and this whenever he has a mind as being sole judge in the case Bellarmin answers that Kings were indeed Precarious if their Kingdoms could be dispos'd of at pleasure but because the Pope is ty'd to the order of Justice in that point they are not precarious As if Barclay insisted on that or thought their being Precarious depended on that disposition The Son in defence of his Father laughs at that notion of Precarious and rightly observes that Precarious is not said with relation to him that gives but him that takes away 'T is the power of revocation if that word fit him vvho never gave plac'd in the Pope the power of deposing when the Pope thinks fit which makes a King precarious let the Kingdom be dispos'd how 't will afterwards the King is still precarious purely Tenant at vvill But pray tell me truly Do you in earnest find any thing in these healing Buts of Bellarmin which makes his opinion a jot sounder then the Canonists a jot safer for Princes or more dutiful for Subjects For my part I profess seriously I find nothing unless non-sence will do the feat There is a little more non-sence in this opinion then the other and if that be a security for Princes it would do vvell if the vvorld ran mad as fast as it could While men are in their wits they vvill go near to think never a Barrel better Herring Just such work he makes vvith Barclays next Proposition which was this To judge when 't is necessary for the good of Souls that a King be depos'd belongs only to the Pope and none is to question his Judgment This he saies is like the former and if it be ill understood is false but rightly understood is true but then concludes not what Barclay would have it Now am I terribly afraid that ill understood is as much in Bellarmins language as truly understood or so as it truly signifies and rightly understood means understood otherwise then as it signifies For else I cannot for my heart see but if the Pope may depose when there is necessity and judge when this necessity happens and none must call his judgment in question and these words mean as they sound Kings are purely Tenants at will and the Pope may depose them whenever he pleases to judge it necessary which is what Barclay would conclude What is the good meaning in which vve must rightly understand it Why It does indeed belong to the Pope saies he to judge whether it be necessary a King should be depriv'd of his Kingdom Very well So Barclay understood it and so Bellarmin himself understands it Why does it not conclude then that Princes may be depos'd at pleasure Because of another But. But saies he it does not belong to the Pope to feign necessities at pleasure or serve his passions under pretence of necessity Bellarmin is as unlucky it his Buts as Distinctions Whoever said it belong'd to
thought fit that they refuse to give him that Title Now Bellarmine sticks to the consequence which is all the mischief and makes the Pope do all that a supreme Monarch could do and thinks all is well if he do not call him so when as if he could do what Bellarmine would have him he truly were supream Monarch and Bellarmine might make no bones to call him by his proper name The truth is ' â—would anger any King at heart to be put out of his Kingdom and not so much as know why nay while on the contrary he is fully perswaded he cannot be dispossest even by those who dispossess him If a Canonist come and tell him Sir you must descend the Pope your supream Lord has so commanded If he believe the Canonist he understands how a superior Power is to be obey'd and submits as a Lieutenant when his Commission is recalled But if Bellarmine come and tell him you are now a private man the Pope has so declared Without doubt he will reply what if he have Have not you your self told me that I am a true King no Vassal of the Popes but supream in Temporals Have not you told me the Popes Power is only spiritual and do you tell me now I must give up my temporal Crown to the command of a spiritual Authority All this is true quoth Bellarmine but yet you must obey What! must I obey one who cannot command in such things Yes he can 'T is something hard for you to understand who are no Scholar you can understand what 't is to obey and that is enough for you the rest belongs to us of the Trade In my conscience this would sooner put a man out of his wits then out of his Kingdom and who kept his wits I believe would go near to keep his Kingdom too In fine the sum total of the Canonists account is but this That the Pope by reason of his absolute supream Authority in all things is not to be questioned but obey'd in whatever he commands And if Bellarmine go less in substance whatever he do in words I am mistaken Nay how much short is he even in words when he tels Barclay C. 17. That if the spiritual Prince happen to abuse his Power by excommunicating a temporal Prince unjustly or absolving his Subjects from their obedience without just cause and so disturb the temporal Commonwealth This were sin in the spiritual Prince but yet that temporal Prince could not assume to himself the judgement of spiritual things or judge the spiritual Prince and much less depose him from his spiritual Seat This is worded in opposition to Barclay who by the same Argument which Bellarmine brings for the Deposition of Princes proves that they may as well depose Popes But if this do not signifie that right or wrong the Pope is always to be obey'd I understand it not For Deposition according to him is a spiritual thing an act of spiritual Power to judge of this a Prince must not assume to himself no not in case of Injustice And if he must not question what remains but to obey it and this in all Cases just or unjust Let the boldest Canonist that is out-go this if he can Upon the whole I see no other difference betwixt the two opinions but that one is abominable false and the other abominable false and abominable full of non-sense besides They with one bold untruth subject all Princes to the Pope and for the rest discourse at least consequently Were their Principle true all would follow which they say He makes Princes as much subject as they and when he has done cals them true soveraign Princes and discourses so that no part hangs together Every one fals together by the ears with his fellow and makes such mad work that a body can understand nothing of it but that 't is false Consider a little what he teaches in his Rom. Pont. against these Canonists That Christ or the Christian Law deprives none of the Right and Dominion he had before that otherwise Christianity would be injurious and a wrong instead of a benefit and therefore Christian Rings and Emperors acknowledge no Superior in Temporals but are true and supream Princes in their own Kingdoms Again That Christ our Lord has distinguisht the Acts Offices and Dignities of Popes and Emperors that one should not presume to meddle with the Rights of the other and a great deal more to this purpose But that strange things happen in the world now and then one would not suspect that these things and Deposition should both be taught by one man and that man a friend of the Popes Sure if I were Pope I should not think my self much oblig'd by him who gives me a Power to do injuries But with what Distinction-sodder shall we ever cement these things Does a King lose nothing when he loses his Kingdom Is nothing taken away when all is gone Is he depriv'd of no Right who is depriv'd of the Right to reign Is it no injury to be turn'd out of a Throne to be forc't to change Purple for Rags and languish out a despised life in helpless Beggary Do Christian Princes acknowledge no Superior in Temporals if they acknowledge one at whose command they must quit their Temporals By the way we are at our Superior in Temporals again with the meaning of which for my late bad success I dare not meddle It signifies you know ee'n what you please But let it signifie what it will I am sure no Distinction can hinder but who has Power to command in Temporals is Superior in Temporals And he would make us believe at the same time both that Christian Princes know none such and yet do know a certain Person who can command away their Temporals from them To make both these true at once is me thinks a pretty confident undertaking Then again what means this that the two Powers are distinct and one not to meddle with the Rights of the other I am sure he does not mean that the same Person cannot have and exercise both because then the Bishop of Rome could not be a temporal Prince Now I understand how in that case the Powers are distinct in themselves notwithstanding they are united in one Person because that one Person commands temporal things in vertue of one power and Spiritual in vertue of another which certainly he may do who has both But when there is but one Power extended to both kind of actions The powers certainly are then confounded if they can be confounded at all For what can confounding or mixing in this case signifie but making one of two which one shall have the vertue of both So liquors so every thing that I know in the world are blended or confounded together Wherefore 't is Bellarmin not the Canonists who truly confounds these Powers They make them two but say the Pope has both Bellarmin saies he has but one and that the Spiritual only but
Election at least till his Brother consented as he soon did the same title which K. Stephen and after him K. John had to the Crown I should think their Examples a very good Reason that the proceedings of those times are not to be drawn into consequence For if they may it will follow that the Kingdom of England perhaps is at least has been Elective Which I suppose no Englishman will admit if they may not I know not to what purpose they are alledged For these reasons I am perswaded nothing can be drawn from the proceedings of the first Norman Princes to justify the Resignation of King John which is so far from being binding to our times that it never had any validity at all But not to leave the matter disputable betwixt my No and the Yea of who will maintain the contrary I will fairly put it to Judgment and say whatever was done and by whatever right about the times of the Conquest that K. John in particular could not validly do what he did and that this has already been decided and in such manner that there is nothing so firmly setled in the world which may not admit of question as well as this In the reign of Ed. III. the Pope demanded the long unpaid one thousand marks granted by K. John and threatned by legal process to recover this rent A Parliament was called chiefly for this business and it was unanimously resolv'd Rot. Parl. 40 Ed. 3. That neither K. John nor any other could bring Himself his Kingdom or People into such subjection without their consent and against his Coronation Oath And that in case the Pope should by process or otherwise attempt to constrain the King or his Subjects to perform the premisses They would become Parties and resist him with all their Power This is plain and peremptory and directly to the point I cannot but muse to observe them speak doubtingly of the matter of Fact Supplication of Souls and the more because Sr. Tho. More very positively denies the Church of Rome could in his or any time produce such an Evidence When I consider He was a learned man and no Enemy to the Pope had great means of being well acquainted with Records and passages of former times unknown to others and speaks as if he had good ground for what he said I hardly know what to think of it I wish he had inform'd us what his grounds were peradventure there is more to be said than we are aware of But since he has not and the Parliament does not directly deny the Fact I for my part must be contented to take things at the worst and not deny what I cannot disprove I have this for my comfort that if the Fact were true it was in Sr. Tho. More 's words right naught worth and the Authority of Parliament to bear me out By the way our Author in alledging the consent of the Barons at that time the only representative of the Kingdom speaks against a solemn Declaration of Parliament and this undeniable proof may be joyned to what I produc'd before to make good my denial of their consent However the Question is positively decided and by an Authority irrefragable to Englishmen But lest we should be suspected of partiality in our own case let us put it to the Judgment of Forreigners When the differences betwixt this King and the Barons became irreconcileable they sought protection from France The Pope sent a Legat to disswade the French King and his Son from medling with a Kingdom the Dominion whereof belonged now to the Church The word was hardly out of the Legats mouth when the King of France reply'd suddenly M. Paris ad an 1216. That England never had been nor then was nor ever should be the Patrimony of Peter And this besides what he else alledged because no King could give away his Kingdom without consent of his Barons an error which if the Pope would maintain He would give a most pernicious example to all Kingdoms The Nobility present with great heat justify'd this speech of their King and declared they would stand for that point to death viz. that it was not in the power of any King to transfer his Kingdom or make it tributary at pleasure You see I spoke not altogether out of my own head when I refus'd to yield an arbitrary right of disposing Kingdoms even to Conquerors and that I shall not want who will take my part But to let that pass it cannot be attributed to the partiality of our either Country or Times that we hold this Deed of K. John null when it was condemned for such by those who were contemporaries to it and as much abroad as at home Who desires more security is in my opinion a very scrupulous man Notwithstanding let us put it to the Judgment of the very Contrivers of the Deed. I am much mistaken if Themselves had not the same sentiments with the rest of the world If They did not understand well enough that the consent of the Barons was necessary to the validity of the Deed why did they insert that clause Communi Consilio Baronum nostrorum A thing of this consequence undoubtedly was not carelesly hudled up Great deliberation was without question us'd and they would never have put in what they themselves and every body else knew was false but that they were sensible All was to no purpose without it So that in the hard choice of framing a Draught either without Truth or without validity They had an eye to the latter and let the first shift as it could The truth is They had reason it being obvious enough that if they could carry things out at present the Charter it self as all Records are would be a strong Presumption for the truth of what it contains to Posterity But since it is as evident as that there was a Charter that this Clause was untrue it is likewise evident that Those who put it in thought it necessary Wherefore even in their Judgments the Grant was invalid as wanting what themselves thought absolutely requisite You now perceive of what importance this point is of the Consent of the Barons of which I forbore to speak while I was examining whether they consented or no. Neither do I mean to dilate upon it now it being enough to observe that the want of it absolutely invalidates the Grant and this in the Judgment not only of the Framers and of the King and Kingdom of France but of Parliament For you see They positively declare that neither K. John nor any other could bring the Kingdom into subjection without consent of the People who at that time had none but the Barons to consent for them So that not to acquiesce in this point is to refuse the highest Authority of the Nation and who does so is not fit to live in the Nation But shall I venture to joyn our Author himself to the rest of this good company and
The Controversial Letters OR THE Grand Controversie Concerning The pretended Temporal Authority of POPES over the whole Earth and the true Sovereign of KINGS within their own respective Kingdoms Between two English Gentlemen The one of the Church of England The other of the Church of Rome The first two Letters The Second Edition LONDON Printed for Henry Brome and Benjamin Toke at the Gun and at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-Yard MDCLXXIV E. Libris Beblioth Eccles Cathedr Petribur SIR I Fear the heat of our last Encounter may have done me some prejudice in your good opinion and would justifie to you if I can both my zeal and my friendship Permit me therefore with a more settled calmness to give you the Reasons which sway'd with me then but which the promptness of my nature possibly might so disguise that they might not then appear reason to you As this is my only so I hope 't will be my full justification for though we ow much to friendship we ow more to Truth and that Friend who bars the use of reason in his Friend does in my judgment ill deserve that Name Notwithstanding let me add what I think you are already sufficiently perswaded of that I am far from the blind zeal of those who think Popery an imputation so scandalous and contagious that it destroyes all correspondence with those who own it I have met with several besides your self of your judgment in Religion accomplisht men and so qualified that I cannot but wish either that all such men were Protestants or all Protestants such men I think so well of some parts of your Religion that there are who think the worse of me I read your books alwayes without hatred and sometimes with pity at the unequal combat betwixt the Knight and the Giant though I make no doubt you are even with us in this particular and are all Knights in your own Countreys When I hear People cry out Papists and Popery I have sometimes the bluntness to ask what they mean for having heard them apply'd both to Prelatics and Fanatics they must needs be words of a strangely large size and magical comprehension if they can fit parties so different and what know I but they may be so explain'd that you may own them no more than other folks In fine I look upon my reason as one of the greatest gifts I have receiv'd from God and am perswaded 't is a duty I ow him to use it as well as I can Wherefore I as little approve the passionate zeal of our side as I understand the sublime perfection of blind obedience on yours but where I see you have reason I am content to allow you have so Yet after all Friend I must continue constant to what I maintain'd at our last meeting I love my King and my Countrey as I ought and can neither believe that can be a true Religion which teaches doctrines inconsistent with Government nor believe otherwise but that yours does teach such doctrines And though I know their pestilent influence does not alwayes work for you have in the late times of tryal approved your selves honest men yet I cannot think that Commonwealth safe in which they are either tolerated or conniv'd at Of this I will make your self Judge and in this Paper produce my evidence which shall be the very words of the most famous Authors amongst you who if they be sufficient for number and considerable for learning and plain in expression and own'd for yours I see not what more can be expected from me nor what at all can be reply'd by you or any else To begin then there are I must confess some modest men amongst you Bellarm. de Rom. Pon. l. 5. c. 2. who speak sparingly of the Pope and affirm Princes are not the Popes Vicars These exempt from his Soveraignty the greatest part of the World for they make Infidel Princes true and supreme Princes of their own Kingdoms and say the Pope is not Lord of those possessions which Infidels hold Nay they go so far as to dare say He is not JVRE DIVINO Lord so much as of the whole Christian world Id. c. 3. And that all his power to depose Princes and dispose of their Kingdoms is only indirectly and in ordine ad spiritualia which alas is a matter of nothing and he must needs be a very scrupulous man who boggles at it For this opinion are cited besides two Cardinals Bellarmine and Cajetan abundance of other famous men with hard names Henricus and Joannes Driedo Turrecremata Pighius Waldensis Petrus de Palude Franc. Victoria Dominicus Soto Sanderus Aspileveta Covarruvias and so many others that Bellarmine affirms it is communis sententia Catholicorum Theologorum though in that particular as you will presently see he was a little out But these as many and as learned as they are are but dow-bak't men and scent strongly of wicked carnal policy and heresie too as an honest Gentleman fairly insinuates by the title of his Book Alex. Carrerius adversus impios Politicos nostri temporis Haereticos design principally against this opinion And so Bellarmine scap't fairly for Sixtus Quintus if the information I had from a very good hand deceive me not had a great mind to have burnt his book Though he scap'd more narrowly at Paris for giving too much to the Pope than at Rome for giving too little His fellow Suarez had his book burnt there by the common Hangman and he was found guilty of the same fault but he was a Cardinal for which respect I suppose they dealt more mercifully and only condemn'd and forbid him But this by the by Your hearty men whom the bugbears of carnal policy cannot fright from the defence of truth tell us another story and say plainly what we must trust too Vnless says Franciscus Bozius Fr. Bozius de Temp. Eccl. Monarchia praef ad Clem. 8. there be one supreme Monarch in the Church in all things the unity of the Church cannot be preserved for seeing the Church by divine institution doth consist of a Kingdom and a Priesthood if it were otherwise there should be in the same absolutely one Monarch of the Kingdom and another of the Priesthood That if for avoiding dissentions about sacred causes one supreme Head is appointed why not in the same manner of the Kingdom that there should be one and the same Head both of the Kingdom and Priesthood lest in like sort there should happen dissention betwixt them that therefore it is the rather to be held that Peter doth supply Christs place not only in the Priesthood but in the Kingdom that he might be a King and likewise a Priest according to the order of Melchisedech who was both a King and Priest The famous Cardinal Baronius sayes the same Baron Ann. Tom. 1. An. 57. p. 432 433. That David did foretell that the Priesthood of Christ should be according to the order of
Melchisedech That when Christ being a King and a Priest received all judgment of the Father that is most full judicial power He joyning the same with his Priesthood did institute in the Church a regal Priesthood translating in suos I conceive he means St. Peter and his Successors all the power he had of his Father This new coronation of King Peter so long after his death and the mystery of King and Priest meeting in Melchisedech which St. Paul never dreamt of though he treat the subject particularly and something to better purpose and the admirable expedient to avoid dissentions by taking away Regal power are pleasant matters and deserve to be reflected on but that I have so much of this divertive stuff to produce that I cannot stay every where Thomas Bozius tells us Tho. â—ozias de jure stat praefat ad Aldobrand that if Christ be King of Kings and Lord of Lords in like sort the Church must be Queen and Lady that all temporal Regal power doth reside first in the soul of Christ and then in the Church his Spouse the Queen of the World and from her is deriv'd to others Faithful or Infidels as out of a fountain Isid Moscon de Majest militant Eccles P. 96. Isidorus Mosconius sayes to the same purpose That not only all faithful people but likewise Infidels and every natural creature is subject to the commandment of the Pope he is to be worshipped of all men and for this cause he receiveth of all the faithful adorations prostrations and kissing of his feet What pretty truths there are in the World which negligent men overslip by inadvertence who would have thought the Mogul and King of Pegu and Chinese Tartar had deriv'd their little streams of power from the great Channel of the Church Ungrateful men who so little acknowledge their Benefactors But since all natural creatures are subject to his commands I wish some body that has credit would prevail with him that Lyons and Bears and Adders and such naughty natural creatures might be forbidden to do us any harm for the future For as simple as he seems to sit at Rome and though he is pleased to make but little shew of any such power he can stop the mouths of Lyons and quench the violence of Fire So that had we not been Hereticks he might have done us a greater kindness here at London in the time of the fate dismal Fire then we are aware of I warrant you he could have whisper'd down the wind and with one grave Nod have cool'd the courage of the Fire But let us return to Mosconius P. 91 teaching us farther that the Pontifical and Regal power and all other powers are most plentiful in the Pope and do reside in the Pontifical dignity That all dominions whatsoever depend upon the Church P. 656. and upon the Pope as Head of the Church That in the Pope Authority is consider'd in Emperors and Kings power P. 670. and thence it is that power doth depend upon Authority P. 27. That the Pope is call'd universal Judge King of Kings and Lord of Lords P. 677. That Emperors and Kings may be compell'd to keep their oaths taken in their Coronation and Confirmation in that by virtue of such oath they are made the Popes Subjects P. 80. That all temporal Jurisdiction must be exercised not at the Popes command but at his Beck Princes will charge command God who is Lord of all doth by his beck command according to that Dixerat nutu totum tremefecit Olympum That Christ had full Jurisdiction over all the world and all creatures P. 85. and therefore the Pope his Vicar hath so In truth these Authors of yours are considerative men and as careful as they are able They reflect that Popes are generally old men and have often weak lungs and 't was charitable to exempt them from the painful trouble of commanding and make a nod serve the turn Carrerius in his zeal against impious Politicians and Heretics teaches us That true just ordain'd by God Alex. Carrer de Potest Rom. Pont. p. 9. and mere dominion as well in spiritual things as in temporal was brought forth by Christ and the same was committed to St. Peter and his Successors That Christ was Lord over all Inferiors P. 111. not only as God but likewise as man having even then Dominion in the earth and that therefore as the dominion of the world was in Christ both divine and humane so it must be confessed that it was in the Pope his Vicar That the mystery of Redemption being accomplisht Christ as a King gave unto Peter the administration of his Kingdom and St. Peter did execute that his power against Ananias and Saphira That Ghrist as he is man is directly Lord over all the world in Temporalities P. 124. and that therefore the Pope is so likewise in that he is Vicar That the supreme power of judging all and the top of dignities P. 126. and the height of both powers are found in Christs Vicar That as the divine and humane dominion were in Christ P. 150. so in Christs stead the dominion of the world in the Pope is both spiritual and temporal P. 151. divine and humane That the unremovable Truth doth design by Peters only coming by water to Christ that the whole dominion which is signified by the Sea is committed to St. Peter and his Successors 'T is quaint that and surprizing but yet this water me thinks is something an unstedy foundation That as the Pope cannot say he is not Christs Vicar so he cannot deny but that he is Lord over all things because the earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof whereby all things heavenly earthly and infernal are subject unto Christ the Lord and thence it is that he did commit unto the Pope who doth supply his place upon earth the right of the Heavenly and Terrene Empire That he should forget the infernal Empire the famous Purgatory power which for all it be under ground time has been when no glebe above ground has been more fruitful Elsewhere he teaches that there are divers Powers of men given by God P. 142. and divers Authorities all which do depend upon the highest Authority meaning I suppose the Popes and thence as the stars from the sun receive their light That the Imperial power concerning the administration of temporal matters doth proceed from the Pontifical power P. 145. as the light of the Moon from the light of the Sun P. 161. That the Empire of Rome before it was converted to Christ was a dominion usurpt and tyrannical because the true dominion was in the line of Christ That the Emperor is the Popes Minister for God did appoint him tanquam summi Sacerdotis Ministrum That no King or Emperor hath jurisdiction or dominion but from Christ and by consequence can have none at all but from his
the Bishop of Rome in place of Christ is set as a Prince over the whole world in spirituals and temporals and that it is naturally morally and by the Law of God to be held with a right faith that the Principality of the Bishop of Rome is the true and only immediate Principality of the whole world not only as touching things spiritual but likwise temporal and the Imperial Principality is depending upon it as being mediate ministerial and instrumental ministring and serving it and that it is ordained and instituted by it and at the commandment of the Papal Principality is moveable revocable corrigible and punishable I marry Here 's a man speaks to purpose Hang this squemish faint-heartedness which serves for nothing but to cover an ugly face with a vizor as ugly We know well enough what the mincing indirect in ordine ad spiritualia power would be at and 't is a great deal better to speak plainly for Orthodox truths such as concern the Law of God and right faith should be spoken so that people may understand them and know their duty As for Kings they are likely to boggle as much at the mask as the face If they be turn'd out of their Kingdoms and reduc'd to beggery the beggery will be direct beggery whatever the power is which brought them to it and this fine distinction but uncomfortable alms One would think this fellow were not to be match't and what think you of him who says in down-right terms Alvar. Pelagius de planctu Eccl. l. 1. a 37. That the Pope hath the propriety of the Western Empire and the rest of the world in protection and tuition He bids fair this man but of all commend me to Jacobus de Terano who explicating that scurvey text Tract Monarch· Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars tells us It was spoken but for a time not for ever that it was to hold only til the Ascension of Christ and afterwards that should come to pass which was spoken when I shall be lifted up from the earth I will draw all things after me that is I will recover all the Empires and Kingdoms of the world and will take them from Caesar from Kings and Princes to give them to the Pope I have not met with any who bids fairer for the purple than this man And so I leave him and the rest of your learned Authors for though more men might be alledged and more from these men yet in truth I am weary and must pass over sundry passages of profound learning and useful knowledge as that Papa is deriv'd from the Interjection Pape Moscon p. 22. because his dignity and power is admirable to all men and is as it were the amazement of the World according to the Gloss in the Proeme of the Clementines Papa stupor mundi non Deus non homo sed utrumque That he is God best defin'd by negation Manch l. 3. c. 1. Carrer p. 132. so that if one ask whether the highest Bishop be a Duke a King an Emperor to answer warily we should by denying affirm the Pope to be quid praestantius quidve eminentius So that we may hope one day to see a mystical Theology made for the Pope and the inaccessible mystery of his power declar'd by negations Moscon p. 92. That unto the Pope as Pastor of the Church Lanc. Conrad l. 2. c. 1. S. 4. and Bishop of that holy Sea and by reason of his dominion and excellence is given Adoratio Duliae such worship as belongs to Saints and Reliques Besides I have seen cited That he is holden to be Christ's Vicar not only in respect of things in earth August Triump q. 18. a. 2. in Heaven and in Hell but even over Angels both good and bad That he is greater than Angels as touching dominion not in respect of himself merely but by Authority from God and may be superior to any Angels concerning recompence of reward art 5. and may excomunicate them That he is equal to God and can make something of nothing and wrong to be right and such pretty matters which if the ears of you Catholics were not as much hardned as the hearts of us Heretics would sound a little odly But to our purpose The method of discourse requires now that I should apply these sayings to the matter in hand but the application is so easie and obvious that to spend time in it must needs be equally tedious and needless For pray tell me can any Commonwealth be safe or subsist at all if Princes have no dominion but what they receive from the Pope If they hold their Empires and Kingdoms of him if they may absolve their subjects from allegeance and transfer their rights from one line to another If they be his Ministers his Vassals his Subjects If their power be ministerial and subservient to the Papal to be exercis'd at his beck and be at his command both corrigible and revocable If any thing be plain in the world this is that either Princes must be taken out of the world or these Maxims For without more ado he that makes a Prince be a Subject makes him no Prince speaking as I do of absolute Princes Wherefore leaving these things and their application to your consideration I turn my self to reflect on what I concieve you may reply Two things there are which I have heard alledged in your behalf with some appearance but not much substance First that notwithstanding all this Catholic Princes do live safely and govern quietly and therefore to conclude these doctrines are inconsistent with government is to conclude that cannot be done which we plainly see is done Next that while men are men there will be quot capita tot sententiae that nature is not furnisht with means to confine the fancies of private men to the limits of strict reason that these are problematical Questions which particular men dispute into probabilities but for which the Church is not responsible having never either defined or otherwise ingaged her authority for them To the first I reply that a certain King took poyson so long that it became food to him and yet I think poyson for all that a very dangerous thing and very inconsistent with health The Princes you mention have Antidotes undoubtedly with which I am not acquainted but let the Antidote be never so good poyson will be poyson still And truly I think Sir Thomas Moor did honestly when finding some passages in the book which Henry the 8th writ against Luther of which by the King's command he had the perusal and in which he thought the Pope was complemented a little too far he represented to the King that one day possibly they might fall out as afterwards they did and that then He might wish some things unsaid While those Princes and the Pope continue friends they need not much apprehend and possibly are not much accquainted with what passes amongst
Scholars for they are sure enough that for his own sake He will not use his power against those who maintain his interest It may be too with Princes as with other men who to compass some end upon which they are passionately set at present value not a mischief much more considerable than the loss of their present pretences which is farther of If the Pope can assist either French or Spaniard the Divines of that King whose part he takes may say any thing freely and Stasemen who have little esteem of Shoolmen will think the Pope sufficiently over-reacht when for a few pleasing words they have got peradventure a Town or Province So that your Princes seem to be alwayes playing with the Pope at Vy Politics in which game they think their steel to his quils advantage enough though I should think the advantage is cleerly on the Pope's side for as he cannot make stakes he hazards nothing but if Trump ever turn of his suit he bids fair for all Defende me gladio ego te defendam calamo peradventure was no such unequal offer Besides they may possibly have the art to turn his credit to their advantage and make use of it to keep their Subjects more obedient and more in aw It may be they have some of them no better original Title to all or part of their dominions than his Authority and then a blind man may see what reason they have to uphold it It may be these it may be other reasons sway with them but whatever they are or may be I think 't is plainly hatching a serpent in their bosoms For let us suppose the Pope and a Catholic Prince at ods a thing so far from impossible that 't is not unusual 'T is in his power you 'l say to continue Catholic whether the Pope will or no and then He 's safe for he gives the Pope no hold it being only Heresie upon which he can fasten But is this true that nothing will do it but plain Heresie Has not Zecchius taught us that the Pope may deprive Princes of their Kingdoms as oft as they do any great hurt in the Church And will not the bad example of contrasting stubbornly with the supreme Pastor be interpreted a great hurt in the Church Has not Fransciscus Bozius informed us that by reason of the supreme Monarchy in all things temporal Laws may be made by the Church and Kingdoms taken away for just causes If we ask what these just causes are Santarellus answers That Princes may be punisht and depos'd not only for Heresie but for other causes for their faults if it be expedient Ant. Sant in Her Schis Apostas c. c. 30. 31. if Princes be negligent if their persons be insufficient if unuseful How few Princes are there who fall not under some of these qualifications or at least may not be judged to do so when the Pope and He their Enemy is to be Judge As certainly it were a crime greater than the greatest of these to seek the determination of these things from any else This negligence though stumbles me a little for it seems a general and something a captious word and I think it would be to the satisfaction of those who are concern'd if it were defined as soon as might be how many hours a day a King is to give audience that he may not pass for negligent But the man for my money is Thomas Bozius who tells us plainly That the Church the Spouse of Christ De Jure Stat. l. 1. c. 6. p. 6. and Queen of the world may as often as the order of the whole doth require c. transfer the proper rights of one to another as a secular Prince may cast down private mens houses for the beautifying the City or impose tribute for the weal public That he may thus justly do although he hath not erred from whom such rights are transferred to another so the Pope gave the Indians to the Spaniards 'T is an honest fellow this Bozius and cares not for mincing matters Give me the man that speaks out But what think you is Heresie the only unkinging crime when you see any great harm negligence insufficiency unusefulness will do it When innocence it self is no security and the best King of the world may be turn'd out of his Kingdom and that justly if another be thought able to govern more handsomely What handsome work will these Maxims one day make in the world if they be suffered to take deep root For my part I cannot see but Catholic Princes as secure as you make them are no less concern'd then Protestants to beware of them and weed them up quickly and effectually But is it so easie to scape the crime even of Heresie I doubt not and am filthily mistaken if this word Heresie have not as comprehensive a sense and be not of a nature as plyable as Popery amongst us and if managed with equal dexterity may not prove equally serviceable The late King was the honour of Protestant Religion and certainly had never a Subject more unmoveably fixt in it than himself And yet malice made him pass for a Papist at least inclin'd to Popery do what he could and by that imputation principally undid both him and the Kingdom Henry the third of France was possibly as hearty a Catholic yet all his industriously affected bigotteries his great beads and Friers weeds could never clear him from the stain of Heresie maliciously fixt upon him till he fell with a fate different from that of our glorious King in this that his Kingdom suffer'd more no longer his own end was more private being execrably murthered by a private Paricide whereas the barbarous injustice done to our King was heightned by the formalities of public justice So that as far I see Heresie is as dangerous as Popery with us and as hard to be avoided But let us consider a little Sancius has told us that it is to be held with a right Faith that the Principality of the Bishop of Rome is the true and only immediate Principality of the whole World c. If this be right L. 4. c. 1. p 319. the contrary sure is wrong Faith and wrong Faith I think is Heresie Thomas Bozius who never fails will tell us that Christ committed to St. Peter the Carrier of the keys of eternal life the right both of the Terrene and Celestial Empire as Pope Nicholas saith from whom we have it that he is without doubt an Heretic who taketh away the rights of the Terrene and Celestial Empire committed by Christ to the Church of Rome and saith it is lawful so to do and for that he shall be an Heretic in such his assertions P. 152. And Carrerius that the Bishop of Rome is the highest Father and Man of the world and the universal Vicar and Lord of the world and that all others depend upon him as their builder and that otherwise if one
But he was more vigilant than stood with your profit Cardinal Bellarmine was then alive and he writes a letter to Blackwell perswading him to make amends for his fault which he compares to the falls of St. Peter and Marcellinus whereof one deny'd Christ the other committed Idolatry The Pope himself sends a Breve to the English Catholics and forbids the Oath and when they remained yet unsatisfied and made some exceptions of some wrong information and the like usual in such cases justifies the first Breve by a second and so utterly dashes the Oath that ever since the generality of Catholics have refused it and those few who continued constant in defence of the lawfulness of it were look't upon little better than Apostates The great maintainer of it Withrington a learned and honest man was so briskly prosecuted that he was fain to take sanctuary in a Prison and glad he scap't so If after this these things must still pass for probabilities probabilities are things in which I have been much mistaken for I thought a man had been at liberty to take which side he pleas'd but I see a man may as safely maintain Heresie as that side of these probabilities which displeases the Pope Neither can I see how the blame can be taken from him and cast upon private men For private men would have gon right enough if He would have let them alone and had not oversway'd them by his authority and an authority so absolute and merely such that neither He alledges nor I could ever see any reason to conclude that Oath unlawful even in your own grounds In the year 47 when upon the interposing of the Army under the command of the then Sir Thomas Fairfax it was hoped the difference betwixt King and Parliament and disorders of the Kingdom might have been composed and Catholics comprehended in the general settlement in case they could vindicate their principles from inconsistency with civil government Three Propositions were framed by the Catholics to that purpose importing that the Pope or Church had no power to absolve from obedience to civil Government or dispence with word or oath made to Heretics or authorise any to injure other men upon pretence of their being excommunicated c. The Priests were consulted about the lawfulness of these Propositions They met some of most orders amongst them and all agreed they were lawful The Laity rested in their judgment and the most considerable of those who were at hand subscrib'd them This was not very public and at a pretty distance and if it were known a body would think there was no great harm in it unless it be made prejudicial to Christianity for men to live with their neighbours as honest men and good subjects should do But they thought otherwise at Rome The vigilant old Gentleman there who must be pretended ignorant of what passes in Italy and at Rome got an inkling condemned whether the proceedings or propositions I know not for he was so wise as to keep his censure to himself and never let it see light and punisht such of the Actors as were willing to be punisht I know of one a principal one too who was sent beyond sea and there did penance in a house of his own Order for the grievous fault of having been honester than the Pope would have had him and I presume made good resolutions of amendment and becoming a new man and a pious knave for the future And I suppose the rest did the same unless chance or peradventure stubbornness excuâ—â—d them Unhappy Catholicks amongst whom 't is punishable even to be honest How truly has a learned man observ'd that you have the choice of being thought either bad subjects at home or bad Christians at Rome But you must feed upon the fruit of your own wayes In the mean time pray lay the blame of these things no more upon private men when the Pope so manifestly and industriously takes it upon himself and He may reserve you know what he pleases But take yet another instance and that even at this time upon the Stage Upon the restauration of his Sacred Majesty the Catholic Irish Clergy hoping to obtain the effect of some agreements made in the time of the troubles which the then Lord of Ormond the King 's Lieutenaut there commissionated a certain person now living and sent him over into England to sollicit those pretensions in their behalf And finding a profession of Allegeance necessary to their business they framed one which they sent to their Procurator to be made use of in their names and is now in every bodies hands and generally known by the name of the Irish Remonstrance This Profession not appearing sufficiently authentick the Procurator causes a meeting of such of the Irish Clergy as were then at London and informs them of the necessity of a general subscription to it One Bishop and three and twenty other very considerable men subscrib'd it some seven or eight held back professing yet the thing both Catholic as to the doctrin and lawful as to the action but asking what they should get by it But the game being once a foot it was presently and hotly follow'd by the Popes Ministers Cardinal Francis Barbarin at Rome the Nuntio at Paris and Internunce at Bruxels interpose with all concern imaginable They speak they write against it pretend it condemn'd before hand by two Popes meaning the Brief of Paulus V. about the Oath of Allegeance and the censure of the three Propositions by Innocent X. which never saw light and prevail with the Divines of Lovain to censure it They countenance they encourage they promote he Dissenters and brand the Subscribers with the odious names of Seditious and Schismatic and Heretic and Apostate One and he a venerable man was told to his face He had better have died than subscribed But the greatest bustle was about the Procurator himself Him they set upon with all Arts they tempt him with fair offers and the promise of very considerable preferments That failing they persecute him all they can they make his Superiors for he is a Religious man cite and excommunicate him all diffame him and at last have brought things to that pass that few believe him a Catholic and those few keep their charitable thoughts to themselves for fear of being infected with the dangerous Contagion So that so far as I can percieve if the Subscribers were the honester men the Dissenters were the wiser If these opinions must still pass for probable about which Divines may busie themselves without interresting the Church you have a strange and unintelligible way of government amongst you Methinks probabilities should have equal dealing and Divines left to scuffle about them as well as they can without partiality on either side So I think 't is with your other Probabilities in the hot disputes betwixt the Jesuists and Dominicans Scotists and Thomists and the rest Let them beat the Pulpits as hard as they
will the Pope looks quietly on lets them cool and take breath and too 't again and this is fair play But to depress one side and cherish the other and this vigorously and constantly is something odd for probabilities In the name of wonder are Schism and Heresie probable amongst you into which one side of your probabilities alwayes runs Or is it an approv'd custom amongst you to excommunicate for probabilities In fine say what you will I cannot think otherwise but that these probabilities of yours are as improbable as any thing in the world Then for your other pretence that the Church all this while interposes not either all words universally have conspir'd together to abuse us and make us understand nothing even of the plainest or there is no sence in it One would think that Church in Spirituals is as state in Temporals Now if two Princes fall out and the King of France for example assist the one with council and forces and the endeavours of his Ministers we say usually and I think pertinently that the State of France is engaged on that side and he who should deny it would be thought deficient either in his language or his wits For can a more pleasant paradox be invented than that an Army marching by commission of the King of France owning his orders and He their actions were all the while but a company of particular men in whose doings the King and State are unconcern'd Now for King say Pope and for State say Church and where is the difference Notwithstanding as I am not much acquainted with quirks and fear the subtle Distinguo and the triccum de schold as much as the triccum de lege I will not undertake but that amongst so many school Physitians as you have some Logical plaister may be found out which you may apply to this sore But this I see that whatever effect a distinction may have in the Schools it will do no manner of good in the world For if the men of your Church persecute other men they will be no less persecuted whether your Church do this as a Church or under some other formality The world is a material thing and formalities alter not its settled course Discredit and want and pain are materiall things and when they fall upon a man he will be ill at ease in spite of all the belief formalities can afford him And if material Subjects rebell against a material King and drive him out of his material Kingdom I think it matters not much what formalities there were in the case I suppose he will be little the better by learning his Subjects did not act as Subjects nor treat him as a King and his new acquaintance with those subtle empty forms I fear will yield him small comfort If your formalities can preserve or restore Kingdoms if they can make honest men of Traitors if they can restore the credit of private men and relieve their wants and ease their distresses I shall acknowledge they are worth hearkning after But if they can do none of these things the Schools that invented them had even best keep them to themselves and much good may they do them The world has neither need nor use of them for real mischiefs are not cur'd by verbal distinctions We complain that the material Governor of your Church arrogates to himself a power dangerous to Princes and that the material men of your Church maintain him in it and both together hotly prosecute All who are not as hot as themseves Tell not me the Church indeed does this but not as a Church for as a Church or not as a Church she does it and if the mischief be done what matter is it how Withrington ended his uncomfortable dayes in prison Walsh is in a fair way to the same preferment Thousands of people were ruin'd thousands destroy'd in Italy and Germany upon the contests betwixt the Pope and Emperor in France upon the Holy League and what happened in those places may happen every where 'T is a remedy for these mischiefs which I look after and security that they shall not one day happen here not the formality by which they were done For in fine a formal plaister to a material wound is but good words to him who is hungry We had our formalities too and our distinctions in the late war and heard enough of the politic capacity and the personal capacity but they neither abated any thing of the publick misery nor the deserv'd punishment inflicted on the witty Authors Our Pagan Juries found them guilty for all their acuteness and their sophistry had no effect with the illiterate Hangman and undistinguishing Halter We had the formalities of Justice to boot but they serv'd for nothing but to render a fact execrable in it self more barbarous and more inhumane You may have more and other formalities but after all they will be but formalities and not a jot more useful than ours You shall permit me to conclude with a Dilemma which I would recommend to your serious thoughts Either your Church it engag'd in these Positions or she is not if she be she is unexcusable for holding them if not you are unexcusable for not renouncing them when without injury to her authority or your own consciences you may I would gladly receive an answer to this Paper or rather a return for I do not think any answer can be made However I entreat you by all our friendship to let me know what you can say Having found you both rational and ingenious in other points you must needs satisfie the curiosity I have to know whether you will disclaim your Church or your reason for certainly you must make bold with one and the best I suppose will be but a bad choice As you are all brought up in a wonderful reverence to your Church I know it will be hard for you to acknowledge any thing amiss in Her and yet on the other side I think it will go against the hair of your temper to part with your reason and that you may be thought a good Son of your Church be content to be thought no good man as certainly he is not whose actions are not warranted by his reason Pray think not the worse of my friendship that I put you to so hard a choice Reason is the measure of friendship as of other virtues and we cannot sin against friendship by acting according to reason Besides Friend you live in a Communion disapprov'd by Law and unmaintainable by Reason and I think 't is the part of a friend to tell you so Wherefore once again pray think not the worse of me and be assured that whatever you think I truly am Your Faithful Friend and Servant SIR I Received your long Letter with the obligation you lay upon me to answer it and heartily wish you had made use of the power you have over me in some other occasion This subject is a kind of Candle to Flyes
as against any other I could alledge that of those Popes who have gone farthest none has defined any thing concerning these matters in those circumstances which even those Divines who attribute most to them require as necessary to make it believed or ex Cathedra as they call it But I conceive it needless it seeming to me sufficiently evident by what has been alledged already that our Faith and Church are not to suffer by these exorbitancies and commonwealths can secure themselves by their own power But Friend the case is otherwise with you Your men alledge Scripture for these errors and engage your Rule of Faith and how the honest Protestant who in this case undoubtedly has the true sense of Scripture on his side can handsomely disengage his Church from a scandal to which is pretended the authority of her Rule is difficult to apprehend If people come not to their journies end who refuse to take the right road it is no wonder to any nor blame to the Guide whose office it is to shew men the right way but cannot make them follow it But your men pretend they keep the way your Church shews them to Truth and yet arrive at Error And when Error and Truth pretend both to the same Rule and that the Rule of your Church I should think your Church deeply concerned to consider by what means it may be decided which is Heresie and which Faith In short our erring men since they pretend not our Churches Rule can never fix their errors upon the Church nor advance them to Faith nor beyond the degree of opinions Yours since they pretend to the very Rule owned by you must needs till a certain way of proceeding upon that Rule or interpreting Scripture be setled render it doubtful to those who truly desire to be guided by your Rule which of the two is the doctrine of Christ and are therefore wonderfully more dangerous to the Church than ours Farther abstracting from Passion or Interest which may be equal in both ours because they have no firmer ground than their own deductions are more reclaimeable and may at any time relinquish their errors without offering violence to their Faith and Religion Yours because they pretend to your Rule of Faith are apt to mistake their misguided Fancies for Religion as we have seen in the late confusions the title of Saints appropriated to wicked men and so become fixt and unalterable in them for which reason they are also much more dangerous to the State as they were before to the Church In this inequality of cases I do not know the Church of England has proceeded so far as ours in the Council of Constance or condemned these Errors by any Authentic Censure though in my opinion it were proper for her to consider how much her Rule upon which depends her own stability is concerned in them Mean time instead of reproaching our several Churches with the errors of their several Members It were I think more to purpose I am sure more charitable to endeavour that all Errors might be taken away on both sides that by one Faith and one Baptism we may all serve our one Lord and God and reunite into one Holy and Immaculate and Glorious Church free from those spots and wrinkles which our unhappy Divisions have too too much and too long brought upon her This is what the desire to obey your commands has suggested to me in answer to your Letter You will pardon the length of it which as it is beyond my expectation so 't is beyond my power to remedy and give me leave to hope it may prevail with you not to abate either your Charity to my Religion or kindness to Your very humble Servant THE THIRD and FOURTH OF THE CONTROVERSIAL LETTERS OR THE GRAND Controversie Concerning The pretended Temporal Authority of POPES over the whole Earth and the true Sovereign of KINGS within their own respective Kingdoms Between two English Gentlemen The one of the Church of ENGLAND The other of the Church of ROME LONDON Printed for Henry Brome and Benjamin Tooke at the Gun and Ship in St. Pauls Church-Yard MDCLXXIII FRIEND FOR all the thanks I owe you and all the Complements 't were fit I made you take this acknowledgment that you have answered beyond my expectation and this assurance that I will consider very seriously what you say and make such use of it that you shall have cause to think your labour not unprofitably spent But yet I cannot but complain of the secresie which you enjoyn me I for my part am so well satisfied of your way of writing that I cannot but think others will be so too and that this shiness of yours is injurious both to your self and the World and because unjust commands are not to be obey'd let me tell you frankly I mean not to confine your Papers to my closet They shall be seen if it please God by more Eyes then mine but yet not to fall absolutely out with you I will divide stakes and so communicate what you write that there shall be no suspition of the Writer This I promise you very faithfully and to do it with more exactness lest your name should be discovered I engage my self to conceal my own Then if John a nokes get all the praise from you the fault be upon your own Head For the rest to deal plainly with you I find my self I know not how Things will not settle with me and though out of the mouth of a good Protestant I believe what you say would have past good reason yet when I reflect you are a Papist that is if you will pardon my Freedom of a crafty insinuating Generation I have still a kind of grumbling This Papist marrs all and though I think my self as free from prejudice as other men I find t' wil not do I can not but fear being trapan'd You have I must confess said many things very well and more then I thought you had been allow'd to say but you are reserv'd still 'T is true you give Reasons for your reservedness which I can not answer but whether it be that my plain nature would have every thing as plain as my self or that curiosity be like Love where too much reason is thought blameable I could wish in this occasion you had us'd less Reason and more Freedom Speak out the whole truth man and be a good Protestant otherwise own the whole Falshood and be a Papist of the first magnitude I fear your half Catholicks are in as bad a Case as Montaltos half Sinners who shall be damn'd for not sinning enough For my part if I would be a Papist I would be a Papist to purpose Hang this motly Religion this half Rome half Geneva Faith which gets a man neither credit nor security I would be as good a Catholick as Bellarmin for his heart if I would be one and if I thought your Catholick Faith would save me I would take order mine
very pleasant Reformation into the World But I forget that I am to say nothing of my self I must therefore undertake a needless labour and shew from other men that Princes are the Vicars of God and though the unanimous consent of every body might well excuse me for none that I ever heard of either doubts they are so or boggles to call them so when the phrase comes in their way yet I must not break my bargain Let us then consider what this word Vicar signifies and in such plenty or rather such a multitude for I wish the plenty were as great as the number as we have amongst us we cannot sure be ignorant what a Vicar is We see he is one who supplys the place of another who not able for other respects to attend to his proper employment delivers it over to be executed by him whom we call his Vicar Kings we see govern the World and the Government of the World being the proper work of Providence they do the business which properly belongs to God But the nature of God being of that unsociable excellence that we are not able to bear the immediate Rays of divine brightness and converse with him whose Face none can see and live our nature requires he should do this by such substitutes to whom we may address our selves and have recourse for what we need Since Kings then supply the place of God or do that which he should do and which he truly does by them they want nothing to the perfect notion of his Vicars but this that they be appointed and impowr'd by God for that end With this difference notwithstanding that Vicars are necessary for other men from the imperfection of their natures who make them because they cannot attend to two employments at once but are necessary for God from the superexcelling perfection of his nature and imperfection of ours which cannot bear an immediate converse with him Now that they are immediately substituted by God to govern the World under him or in his place since t is not likewise to be deny'd I hope a few Authorities will serve to prove And yet I cannot tell whether that hasty word Immediately will down with all For some Divines put this difference betwixt the Spiritual and Temporal Power that the first is immediately from God the second by mediation of the People subjecting themselves by way of Election Succession or such other means by which Governments are either introduc'd or establisht And for my part though I were not ty'd from dogmatizing irritare crabrones is a thing from which I have much aversion especially in a question which I conceive of an extraordinary importance For whether the power be from God immediately or mediately so it be from God I conceive it extends as far and is as much to be obey'd Saul and David were immediately appointed by God and yet I think as much obedience was due to Solomon as either of them and that St. Peters Successour whether Clemens or whoever else was as much Pope as he And if election made the power mediate we see Popes are not Popes till they be elected There are indeed who by this mediation understand a reserve in the people to reassume in certain cases the power which they have given But this I must needs think very abominable and shall not stick to say whoever reproves me for it is himself more reprovable St. Paul has taught there is no power but from God so I believe and if any think they have found better Masters of Faith I for my part mean to stick to those which Christ has given me But let us see what is said by those whom no Catholick I suppose will reprove The Council of Paris speaks methinks to purpose when it says L. 2. c. 5. No King must think his Kingdom left him by his Progenitors but truly and humbly believe 't was given him by God And that earthly Kingdoms are not given by men but God the Prophet Daniel testifies Dan. 4.14 5.25 Hierom. 27.5 But to them who think their Kingdoms given them by Succession from their Ancestors and not rather by God agrees that which God reproves by the Prophet They have reigned but not by me Osee 8.4 they have been Princes and I knew them not Wherefore whoever Reigns temporally over other men L. 5. l. 21. let him believe his Kingdom was given him not by men but by God St. Austin de Civit. Dei Let us not attribute the power of giving Kingdoms and Empires to any but the true God Tertullian They Empeperours know who gave them the Empire Apoleget adv Gent. c. 30. They know 't was he who made them men and gave them souls They are sensible 't was God alone under whose power alone they are second to him and after him first before all men Again From thence is the Emperour from whence the man before he was Emperour from thence the power from whence the spirit or breath I am not good at subtletys but methinks 't is hard to make that power mediate which is not from Ancestors and Succession not from men but from God alone More refin'd wits perhaps may make it hang together that Kings have their power from God alone and from something else too and that their power is mediate in which none interposes but himself and prove a gift from the people of that which God himself gives as if his power were under Age and could not make a valid donation without them and when they have done such fine things we are still just where we were for 't is acknowledg'd of all hands even by those who least favour the temporal power that it is from God and if it be so those who have it from him are his Vicars But yet you shall not take my word even for so much He was a Vicar of Christ himself who speaks thus to the Emperour Anast 2. Ep. un The brest of your clemency is Sacrarium the sacred depository of publick felicity that by you whom God has commanded to preside as his Vicar on Earth And before him Eleutherius in an Epistle to King Lucius our and I think the Worlds first Christian King preserved in our Antiquities tells him 't was needless to send him the Roman Laws which the King desir'd but wishes him to take the Law of God and the advice of his own Nation and frame such as were proper for his Country as being himself the Vicar of God After him another uses these terms to the Emperour Steph. 6. ap Baron an 885. n. 11. Although you similitudinem geras which I know not how otherwise to English then represent the person or are the Vicar of the Emperour Christ himself The same phrase is found in Pope Hermisda In Ep. ad Rom. c. 13. St. Ambrose speaks plainly Let them know they are not free but under the power which is from God for they are subject to
their Prince qui vicem Dei agit who is the Vicar of God as to God himself S. Tho. of Aquin. If he be Author of the work attributed to him De Regim Princ. l. 2. says a King is oblig'd with all care and diligence to look after Religion not onely because he is a man but because he is a Lord and a King and Dei vices gerit is the Vicar of God on whom he chiefly depends To omit Nicolaus de Lyra Fevardentius and more then a Letter would hold or you have patience to read for I think you are furnisht with a sufficient stock of that vertue if you can forgive the folly of saying so much as I have done which seems to me not much wiser then to go about seriously to prove there is such a place as Jamaica or has been such a Man as Harry the 8th I shall onely adde the Authority of the Roman Pontifical Printed at Rome 1595. where the Prayer appointed for the Consecration of Kings ends thus That you may glory without end with our Redeemer Jesus Christ cujus nomen vicemque gestare crederis whose name you bear and whose Vicar you are This being so consider now what a pleasant Argument you have light upon by which Kings may as well absolve Penitents and confer Sacraments as the Pope dispose of Kingdoms Notwithstanding let us look a little nearer upon it Christ say you gave all the power he had He had all both Spiritual and Temporal therefore the Pope must have it too If you will not be too hasty in your censure but delay it till I have time to explain my meaning I will answer you a Catholick may be a very good Catholick and believe all a Catholick is bound to believe and yet believe never a one of those two Propositions Not that I mean to be guilty of the blasphemy of denying to the Son of God all power in Heaven and Earth but that Son of God being man too I do not know a Catholick is bound to believe that man purely as man was a temporal King But of this more by and by when your second Proposition comes into play in the mean time let us consider the first viz. That Christ gave to the Pope in St. Peter all the power he had himself Pray how does this appear 't is included say you in this that he is his Vicar I beseech you consider again for I cannot readily think of an inference which seems to me more wild and more palpably contradicted by the open course of things with which we daily converse A Judge represents the Kings Person a Constable does it all Officers both Civil and Military supply his place in their several employments Can every one of these therefore do as much as the King Can a General coyn money or a Judge call a Parliament or a Constable make War and Peace We see their several Powers are bounded by their several Commissions and the priviledge of representing his person gives them no more power then he is pleas'd to confer upon them How can it be otherwise with the Pope He indeed is the Vicar of Christ and represents his person and so the Judge does the Kings but what power he has we are to learn from his Commission not his Title Let us now consider what a good Catholick may say to this point And first I believe no man can reprove him if he say he finds no temporal power included in any Commission recorded in Scripture Tradition or the Fathers and if he refuse to believe more then he finds there I think none will reprove him for that neither In Scripture we find Saint Peter commissionated to teach to baptize to feed the Flock to confirm his Brethren we find the Keys of Heaven promis'd and given him and what those Keys signifie we find there declared to be this that what he should bind or loose on Earth should be bound or loos'd in Heaven But of deposing Kings or disposing of Kingdoms we read no word That his Commission extends only to Spirituals is a thing so notoriously known and universally receiv'd amongst Catholicks none denying it but some Canonists who meddle ultra crepidam and a few Divines who handle their crepida unskilfully and follow them that to be serious and earnest in the proof of it is a labour as little needful and perhaps less pardonable then that which I have newly ended of shewing Princes to be Vicars of God However because I am to say nothing of my self hear what others say De Anath Vinc. Gelasias speaks very clearly Fuerant haec ante adventum Christi c. Before the coming of Christ figuratively and remaining yet in carnal actions some were both Kings and Priests as the H. History delivers of Melchizedeck Which thing too the Devil striving always with a Tyrannical Pride to usurp to himself those things which belong to divine Worship has imitated amongst his Followers so that amongst Pagans the same men have been Emperours and chief Bishops but when we were once come to the true King and Bishop Christ neither has the Emperour any longer assum'd the name of a Bishop nor the Bishop the regal dignity For although his Members that is of a true King and Bishop are magnificently said according to the participation of his nature to have assum'd both in a sacred generosity that the Regality and Priesthood may subsist together yet Christ mindful of the frailty of humane nature tempering with a glorious Dispensation what might conduce to the salvation of his People has so distinguisht the Offices of both Powers by proper Actions and distinct Dignities desirous his Followers should be sav'd by wholesome Humility and not again betray'd by humane Pride both that Christian Emperours should need Bishops for eternal life and Bishops in the conduct of the temporal things should use the Imperial Laws that the spiritual action might be distant from carnal assaults and he who militat Deo is a Souldier of Gods should not embroil himself with secular business and on the other side he who is entangled in secular business should not preside over divine matters both that the modesty of both degrees might be provided for lest he who had both should be puffed up and a convenient profession be particularly fitted to the qualities of the Actions This man was a Vicar of Christ himself and you see he is so far from thinking his Commission extends to temporal things that he plainly teaches Christ distinguisht them and left the spiritual Power so alone to him that for temporal Laws he was to be beholding to the Emperour I might peradventure have run the hazard of reproof if I had said that to joyn those two Powers is an Artifice of the Devil but I suppose that saying will not be reprov'd in so antient and so holy a Pope Symmachus succeeded as to his Chair being the next Pope but one after him so to his Doctrine You says he to the
nor governed as Worldly Kingdomes are by Treasuries and Officers and Armies To omit that a Kingdom of this World though received and governed another way then usually Kingdomes are is still a Kingdome of this World for the World is the World let it be governed how 't wil this seems to me to say that the Kingdom of Christ is no Temporal Kingdom For temporal Kingdoms can not subsist nor go on without such things and he that says his Kingdom had them not says plainly his Kingdom was such a Kingdom which needed none of those things Which in other words I think is to say it was not a Temporal Kingdom Again say they the Kingdom of Christ is therefore said not to be of this world because at that time most worldly Kingdomes were got by injustice and governed by wicked and idolatrous Laws and such the Kingdom of Christ was not But pray the Kingdomes now a days establisht with Justice and governed with equity are they not Kingdomes of this World Or did Constantine forfeit his worldly Empire by abolishing those Idolatrous Laws and making better in their places Strange Interpretors of Scripture Who would make worldly Kingdoms inconsistent with vertue and Kings cease to be Kings when they turn good men and most deserve to be so Besides if the world were divided into Kingdomes however unjustly got and wickedly governed t' was yet divided into Kingdomes and what Room was then left for Christ Would they have him a King and give him no Kingdome or a Kingdom no where Farther what can be said why he did not establish his just Kingdom in the place of those wicked ones and take so much injustice out of the World I think nothing but only this that his Kingdom was of another nature made to take away injustice from all Dominion from none I say nothing of the impertinence of alledging injustice in the beginning of Empires a position which would shake the Foundations of the most setled Governments and leave few Princes secure of their Titles A third answer is that his Kingdom is not of this World because not onely of this World but of Heaven and Earth and all Creatures as if this World and more were not this World Besides it mistakes the question too which is not of the extent of his Power to which every Body knows that every thing is subject but of the manner whether besides the omnipotence of his divine nature and the spiritual Regality of his humane there were in him a Temporal power and he were appointed by his Father as Saul to judge the People and go before them 1 Reg. 21.8 and fight their battles This is what the Scripture tells us People expect from their Kings and who speaks not to this speaks not to the question Farther they say that Christs Kingdom is not of this world because worldly Kingdomes are over Bodies his over Souls worldly Kingdomes require obedience to a Temporal Prince his knowledge of and obedience to the Prince of Heaven worldly Kingdomes are extinguisht by death or War c. his is perpetual and immortal c. And this is to say as plain as can be said that 't is spiritual and not temporal For Temporal Kingdoms are over Bodies and if Christs Kingdom be only over Souls 't is not temporal again 't is not temporal if it can not be extinguisht for no temporal thing is immortal Farther to contra-distinguish the temporal Prince from the Prince of Heaven is directly to yield the question and change sides That prejudice should be so strange a blindness and men think to answer by saying the very same with their Adversaries To that of the division of the Inheritance they answer that what Christ refus'd was to be made Arbitrator betwixt the two Brethren But besides that to understand the place of Arbitration seems a little violent for Arbitration requires the Consent of both Parties and there appears nothing but the complaint of one against the injustice of the other His answer imports that medling with Inheritances was a thing with which he had nothing to do and that whether he thought fit or no to become an Arbitrator temporal Matters belonged not to him Again they say his signify'd he was no Ordinary Judge whose Duty and Obligation it was to determine civil Controversies but that his Jurisdiction was Voluntary and Arbitrary And if this be not to say he was not a temporal King I understand nothing for a temporal King is oblig'd by his Office to do Justice and determine civil Controversies and his power is not Voluntary and Arbitrary but Coactive and Obligatory Thirdly They answer that Christ meant his judicial power was not by humane concession as if he could not have done the business as well by Authority from Heaven as from Earth and had not been that way more empowered and more oblig'd to perform his duty Fourthly That Christ came not into the World to judge temporal things though he had full power so to do which is just what the other side says that he was not sent or empower'd by his Father for that purpose though as God he might do what he pleas'd What a pleasant folly this unresolvedness to maintain a thing is which makes people bring for answer the very position they oppose Lastly He is said to have refus'd dividing the Inheritance because Division is the work of the Devil Division of hearts indeed is so but division of possessions is a work of peace and a necessary means to Union of hearts 't is a command from God and a duty in Kings This is chiefly what is said on both sides you will judge as you see cause I for my part believe none better acquainted with the truth then Christ himself and I mean to take his word and believe his Kingdom is not of this World and I care not who knows it If I mistake his meaning and that the Kingdom which he says is not of this World prove yet to be a worldly Kingdom I shall at least have the comfort to err in very good Company and good Company you know is a thing I love sufficiently St. Cyril of Alexan. speaking of the Hyacinth in the Mytre of Aaron The Hyacinth says he De ador in spir l. 11. signifies Heaven remember therefore Christ saying my Kingdom is not of this World for Christ is not an Earthly but a Heavenly King and has all creatures under his feet St. John Chrysostom Christ says he Hom. 87. in Mat. acknowledges himself a King but a Heavenly King ' which elsewhere answering Pilate he says more clearly my Kingdom is not of this World And in another place Hom. 39. in 1 Cor. 15. Stripture knows two Kingdoms one of Adoption and Familiarity another of Creation by the Law of Making and Creating he is King of all Jews Pagans Devils Adversaries by familiarity and care he is King of the Faithful and those who willingly commit and subject themselves to him
This Kingdom too is said to have a beginning for of this in the second Psalm Ask says he of me and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy Inheritance and to his Disciples all power is given me by my Father St. Hierom. In Hierom. c. 22. shews the prophecy concerning Jeconias was not contrary to the promise of the Angel because says he Jeremy speaks of a temporal and carnal Kingdom Gabriel of a spiritual and eternal one St. Austin Hear you Jews and Gentiles hear Circumcision Tr. 115. in Joan. Prepuce hear hear all you Earthly Kingdoms I hinder not your Dominion in this World my Kingdom is not of this World And again What would you more Come to the Kingdom which is not of this World come by believing and be not cruel by fearing The prophecy says of God the Father but I am appointed by him a King over Sion his holy hill But that Sion and that Hill is not of this World For what is his Kingdom but those who believe in him To whom he says you are not of this World as I am not of this World c. Again It is plainly said of the Kingdom of Christ not according to that in the beginning where God the Word was with God for there none ever doubted but he is King for all Ages but according to the Assumption of Humanity and Sacrament of Mediatour and Incarnation of a Virgin that it shall have no end where the Angel speaking to Mary says and he will give him the Kingdom of David his Father and he shall Reign in the House of Jacob for ever But this Kingdom in the House of Jacob and on the Throne of David can it be understood otherwise then in the Church and that People which is his Kingdom of which dlso the Apostle says when he shall have deliver'd up his Kingdom to God the Father that is brought his Saints to tne Contemplation of his Father And L. 17. de Civit. Dei C. 7. Speaking of the passage betwixt Saul and Samuel when Saul tore the Cloak of Samuel He represented figuratively the people of Israel which people were to lose their Kingdom our Lord Jesus Christ by the New Testament being to Reign not carnally but spiritually And what says he was not he a King who fear'd to be made a King plainly he was Tâ—act 25. in Joan. but not such a King as could be made by men but such a King as could give Kingdoms to men He came now not to Reign now as he will in that Kingdom of which we say let thy Kingdom come He alwaies Reigns with his Father according as he is the Son of God the Word of God the Word by which all things are made But the Prophets foretold his Kingdom also according to this that he was made Man and made those who believe Christians For there shall be a Kingdom of Christians which is now a gathering now making is now burying with the bloud of Christ This Kingdom will one day be manifest when the brightness of the Saints will be manifested after the judgment by him made which judgment he said before that the Son of Man should make Of which Kingdom also the Apostle saith when he shall have deliver'd up his Kingdom to God his Father Whence also he says himself Come you blessed of my Father possesse the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the World But his Disciples and the multitude believing in him thought he came now to Reign This is for them to take and make him King to prevent the time which he kept secret to himself to declare seasonably at the end of the World St. Hilary In Psal 2. This therefore is the King set over Sion the holy hill of God declaring the Command of the Lord not over that hill of the Earthly City that deplor'd and homicide and parricide Jerusalem but that Jerusalem which is in Heaven that which is our Mother the City of the great King whose Inhabitants as I conceive those at this day are who rose in the Passion of our Lord. St. Bernard That our Lord Jesus was descended from David no man doubts Hom. 4. sup Mis But I ask how God gave him the Throne of his Father David when he Reign'd not in Jerusalem nay consented not to the multitude which would have made him King besides protested to the face of Pilate my Kingdom is not of this world But we know a Jerusalem was signified different from that which is now and in which David Reign'd much more Noble and more Rich and this I conceive was meant here by a manner of speech usual in Scripture where the Sign is often put for the thing signify'd God did then give him the Seat of David his Father when he was by him made King over Sion his holy hill And he seems more plainly to declare what Kingdom it is of which he speaks by this that he says not in Sion but over Sion For peradventure it was therefore said above that David Reign'd in Sion but his Kingdom is over Sion of whom it was said to David of your seed I will place upon your Seat Of whom it was said by another Prophet He shall sit upon the Throne of David and over his Kingdom You see 't is every where over or upon Over Sion upon his Seat upon his Throne over his Kingdom Our Lord God therefore will give him not the typical but the true Seat of David not a temporal but an eternal not an earthly but an heavenly one Farther And he shall Reign in the House of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end Here too if we understand the temporal House of Jacob how shall he Reign for ever in that which is not for ever We must therefore seek an eternal House of Jacob in which he may Reign for ever of whose Kingdom there shall be no end St. Anselm according to this that the Word was made Flesh he began to Reign in Believers by Faith in his Incarnation These in my Opinion for I intend here to end and think I have done pretty fair for a Letter speak much more to purpose then those alledg'd on the other side who talk of Christs power in general and at most according to his humanity but what kind of power he had they express not the extent of his power which no body denies they assert very plainly but are silent as to the quality of it which is the thing in question Whereas these positively declare it not to be carnal and temporal and earthly but Spiritual and Divine They tell us plainly besides what his Kingdom is namely the Faithful his Church and the plenitude of Saints now a gathering and to be compleated in the Resurrection when he shall deliver his Kingdom to his Father For my self though I have enough declar'd my Opinion yet I declare withal I mean not to tie you or any man to it Neither do
I believe those who are of a contrary judgment will be convinc'd by what I have said neither did I go about to convince them My business was to satisfie you not to dogmatize And I hope you will perceive your Argument so answer'd that if those unquiet Spirits of fear and diffidence continue still to hant you the blame is not to be imputed to me Of two propositions which you assum'd to fix a power Paramount in the Pope upon our Faith I have shew'd a Catholick may safely deny either of both 'T is at his choice to take either way and any one does his business If he will deny a temporal Regality in Christ the difficulty is cut up by the root since a Vicar can not with any shadow of pretence challenge more then was in the Principal himself If not willing to meddle with that question he will take the other way and affirm that whatever power Chrit had he left only Spiritual to Peter and his Successors the difficulty is as fully cleared A Catholick take my word may unreprovably hold either or both and that you may have better security against your fears then my word can give you I have shewed you both maintain'd by those whom Catholicks are not permitted to reprove If all this be not enough to quiet your suspicious let me add that if you consider well you will find that of all men the Principles of Catholciks can least endure the contrary Doctrine Ask of your Fore-fathers walk in the antient Paths avoid novelties and the like are Maximes so known and universally receieved amongst them that who is known to contradict them is known so far to swerve from the acknowledged grounds of Catholick Religion Now when the authority of unquestionable antiquity is of the one side and on the other that of Authors both late and few and of no extraordinary credit a Catholick who knows what he does can so little doubt which part to take that I think he is not excusable if he so much as doubt or at least not otherwise then as zeal is excused by blindness None have that veneration for antiquity and Fathers which Catholicks pretend for they look upon them as the men who have begot them in the Gospel from whence they give them the name of Fathers as the most considerable Pillars of the Church as the principal Persons on whose attestation the Rule of Faith and Stability of Religion depends After the sacred Books of Scripture written by Divine Inspiration to which no writing of Man can be equall'd nor so much as compar'd we Reverence in the next place the Writings of the Fathers which we think useful too and the most useful of any to the understanding of the Scripture of which we hold them the best Interpreters We universally blame those of other Communions for preferring the obscurity of private interpretations before the clear light of Tradition And all these things are known and acknowledg'd by every body Wherefore since the great Lights of the Church St. Agustin and St. Hierom and St. Cyril and St John Chrysostom and St. Bernard and the rest shine clearly out and with a joint consent unanimously conspire into the same Doctrine none are so blamable as Catholicks if they oppose it And such men as Comitolus and Sermarinus and the like put into the contrary ballance weigh so little that t is shameful even that they should enter in The truth is the world goes otherwise then sharp-sighted men would think it should or could else t is not easie to conceive how it should be possible there should be found amongst those of our principles who should stand in opposition to the Fathers All that can be said is that worldly policy sometimes makes a little too bold with Christian simplicity and that preposterous zeal is very blind and therefore a very dangerous Guide And I shall take the liberty to tell you that understanding Catholicks who consider the way they take see if it were followed in other things it would mine Catholick Religion and that the men indeed perhaps by the priviledge of well meaning ignorance are Catholicks but the way is not a Catholick way Thanks be to God there are not many who walk in it and those who do I believe consider not what they do For sure I am that knowingly to sleight the Reverence due to Sacred Antiquity and set up new Masters in opposition to the Fathers of Christianity and Doctors of the Church agrees very ill with a Catholiek Spirit In fine as men will be men and God must make the World another thing then it is if we expect that all should do as they ought you will find among Catholicks some who hold the contrary Opinion but none who hold this reprovable And this I say the more confidently because I mistake very much if it be reprovable even amongst the Jesuits themselves who yet are thought the greatest Favourers of the Papal power At least I know they cannot reprove it without reproving their own best and most famous Authors Read Bellarmin de Rom. Pontif. the fourth Chapter of the fifth Book and Maldonat upon 27 Mat. and see if they do not both expresly hold and strongly prove the Doctrine of the Fathers and so far that the latter says people would make Christ a temporal King whether he will or no c. against his express declaration and that before a Court of Justice They are too long to be transcribed But if you take the pains to read them since that is safe enough from being reproved which there is no body to reprove I hope your suspicions will be at quiet However I think it but seasonable that I should and be permitted after so long a journey to rest Yours c. FINIS ERRATA PAge 3. line 13. read particular l. 36. r. were p. 7. l. 5. r. you cite p. 8. l. 1. for he r. his l. 5. r. enterfere l. 32. may r. my p. 10. l. 37. r. no extraordinary p. 17. l. 29. r. the Servants ear p. 18. l. 26. r. because he defiled l. 33. r. yet he gave l. 35. r. Rabanus p. 21. l. 6. r. dogmatically l. 9. r. any principle l. 11. r. his side p. 22. l. 8. r. suppose l. 28. r. branches p. 23. l. 22. r. Kings p. 24. l. 16. r. penetrat p. 27. l. 22. dele to l. 28. r. were disposed p. 30. l. 18. r. his answer signify'd l. ult r. resolvedness p. 31. l. 28. r. Creation By. The Fifth and Sixth OF THE Controversial LETTERS OR THE Grand Controversie Concerning The pretended Temporal Authority of POPES over the whole Earth And the True Sovereign of KINGS within their own respective Kingdoms Between two English Gentlemen The one of the Church of England The other of the Church of Rome LONDON Printed for Henry Brome and Benjamin Tooke at the Gun and at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard 1673. FRIEND I Must confess I am something better at ease at least I
true English man will not easily be induc'd to swerve from a Doctrine delivered him so Authentically by his famous Ancestours I hope by this time your Curiosity is at an end I am sure my patience is for I am quite tired with talking so long of a matter which seems to me to afford little more advantage than to know which of those Authors who treat this Subject is the best Schollar and talks most rationally For as I said before the Church has no waies interpos'd in the business and possibly it is a thing not very proper for her to meddle with She has receiv'd from Christ and delivers to us That Obedience to our Princes is commanded by God and to be performed not only for Fear but for Conscience And this being agreed by all and acknowledged for unquestioned and unquestionable Truth The rest of the speculations may serve for entertainment of those who delight in them and for the rest seem of little concern till people speculate themselves into opposition to that so certain and so certainly known Doctrine and then they turn not only bad Schollars but bad men if they see what they do however dangerous and as such are to be treated For my part I cannot guess what use you would make of this Immediate Power of which you are so curious unless perhaps you think the security of Kings not sufficiently provided for without it and that they may otherwise be oblig'd to render an account of their actions not only to God but to those by whose mediation they have receiv'd their Power and so a principal and necessary Prerogative taken from them But this is so positively and expresly setled by unquestionable Authority that 't is very needless and rather prejudicial to have recourse to a ground which some question when the thing it self is so unanimously agreed that none questions it Witness S. Cyril Alex. in Joan. L. 12. C. 56. None offend the laws of Kings without punishment but Kings themselves in whom this crime of prevarication has no place for it was wisely said that he is an impious man who saies to the King You do wickedly S. Ambrose Apolog. David c. 10. To Thee only have I sinned for he was a King subject himself to no Laws because Kings are free from the bonds of delinquency For no Laws punish them who are safe by the power of their Empire and he sinned not to Man to whom he was not accountable And Cap. 4. They who are subject to Laws dare to deny their sin and scorn to ask pardon which he ask'd who was subject to no humane Laws Again L. 2. Ep. 7. For supported by his regal dignity as Lord of the Laws he was not guilty to the Law he was accountable to God alone because he is Lord of Power Again upon Psal 118. Serm. 16. He who had not man to fear saies I have sinned to Thee alone c. A King though he have Laws in his power and may sin without punishment is nevertheless subject to God S. Hierom Ep. 46. ad Rustic I was a King and feared no other man for he had no other above him V. Bede upon Psal 50. To Thee alone have I sinned For a King if he sin sins only to God for none else shall punish him for his sin Agapet ad Justinian in Paraenet Impose upon your self a necessity to keep the Laws since you have not on earth who may correct you Isidor Hispal Sent. L. 3. C. 50. People that sin fear the Judge and are by the Laws restrained from their own harm Kings unless they be restrain'd by the only fear of God and Hell run headlong on and from the precipice of Licentious liberty fall into all sorts of Vice Arnob. in Psal 50. Whoever lives under the Law when he offends sins against God and also against the Laws of the World But this King being under none but God alone and only fearing him above his own power sinned to God alone Didymus Cat. Aurea in Psal 50. As he was a King he was not subject to humane Laws wherefore he sinned not against them who made the Laws nor committed this evil against any of them but as to his Regal dignity if he would be Vertuous he was subject to the Divine Law and therefore sinned to God alone Lactantius de Justit L. 5. C. 24. Let not bad Princes and unjust Persecutors who scorn and scoff at the Name of God think they shall scape without Punishment for they shall be punisht by the Judgment of God He commands us patiently to expect that day of Divine Judgment in which he will honour or punish every one according to his deserts Gregory of Tours L. 5. Hist c. 17. If any of us O King will stray from the path of Justice he may be punisht by you But if you leave it your self who shall reprehend you We speak to you and if you please you hear us if you will not who shall condemn you but He who has declar'd himself to be Justice Hincmarus apud Bochell Decret Eccles Gallic L. 2. Tit. 16. c. 2. goes farther and I know not whether not too far Wise men say this Prince is subject to the Laws and Judgment of none but God who made him King in that Kingdom which his Father allotted him And if he will for this or any other cause he may at his pleasure go to the Synod and if he will not he may freely dismiss it And as he ought not whatever he do be excommunicated by his own Bishops so by other Bishops he cannot be judged since he ought be subject to the principality of God alone by whom alone he could be placed in his own principality For my part I cannot agree to the denyal of the power of Excommunicating in Bishops and yet St. Austin is cited Gloss in 13. Math. to say That the multitude is not to be Excommunicated nor the Prince of the people Euthimius in Psal 50. Being a King and having you alone for Judge of the sins I commit I seem to have sinn'd to you alone that is I am subject to you alone as my Judge of all the rest I my self am Lord and in respect of my power it seems I may do whatever I list Haymo in Psal 50. I have sinned to Thee alone because being a King none is to punish my sin but you alone St. Thomas 1 2. Q. 96. Art 5. making this Conclusion That all are subject to the Laws and this Objection from the Law That the Prince is free from the Law Answers That the Prince is free from the Law for as much as concerns the Co-active power because none can pronounce sentence of Condemnation against him Wherefore the Gloss upon Psal 50. saies That the King has no man who can judge his actions But is subject to the Law as to the directive power by his own proper will c. And so without doubt good Princes are and will observe what themselves command
Violent but having to do with a Prince both Resolute and Prudent he found but bad success The Pope perswades the King to an expedition into the Holy Land to promote vvhich business He exacts the Tithes of Church Livings in France and reserves the Collation of all Benefices there to himself The King excuses the one and plainly denies the other The hot Pope sends the Bishop of Apamea to threaten him with Censures and Deposition unless he yielded to him The King calls the States and upon Consultation with them resolves the Legat deserv'd to be imprisoned but for reverence to the See Apostolic banishes him and for his Threats contemns them The Legat not content to scape scot-free falls a new to Threats which the King resenting commits him to custody to the Metropolitan The Pope complains of the breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity and commands his Legat should be immediately return'd These Letters being read in an Assembly of the States the Count of Arras as hot every jot as the Pope throws them into the fire This put the Pope quite out of patience Wherefore he Cites both King and Bishops to Rome where he had appointed a Synod and in the mean time declares the Kingdom of France for Contumacy Felony and Violating the Law of Nations devolved to the Apostolic See writing thus peremptorily to the King We would have you to know that you are subject to us both in Spirituals and Temporals and who thinks otherwise we repute Heretics The King upon the receipt of these Letters calls the States again and by their Advice frames an Answer every jot as smart and something more homely We would have your foolishness know we are subject to none in Temporals and who thinks otherwise we take for mad men And withal appeals to a future General Councel and objects several Crimes to the Pope to be made good when the Councel should sit and in the mean time forbids all intercourse vvith Rome This Answer being brought to Rome by three Bishops deputed for that purpose the Pope began to be startled and at last confesses That to usurp the Kings Jurisdiction belonged not to him nevertheless that in respect of Sin the King could not deny but he was subject to the Pope This put them to examine how far and in what manner he was subject to him and one of the Cardinals in a Consistory in which the French Embassadours were present resolves the case in this manner That Supream Dominion belong'd properly to the Pope but the Administration to Kings and therefore all Christian Kings vvere subject to the judgment of the Pope even in Temporals in regard of his Supream Dominion But this satisfi'd not the Embassadours at Rome and the States in France resuming the Debate declar'd positively the King in Temporals vvas subject to God alone and ow'd his Crown and Power only to him Nevertheless this Subjection on the account of Sin seems to be the ground of the distinction betwixt Direct and Indirect Power though I conceive it borrowed from Innocent the IVth some time before upon occasion of a Contest betwixt John King of England and Philip Augustus of France vvho prosecuting the King of England for default of Homage for some Dukedoms in France c. King John appeals to the Pope Philip maintained that being a Temporal business he had nothing to do vvith it The Pope was vvilling to favour the English and therefore assumes cognisance of the Cause upon pretence that there was an Oath in the case the violation of vvhich being Sin belong'd properly to his Tribunal And this Resolution having been put into a Decree and that Decree into the Canon-Law seems the principal foundation of Indirect Power I must confess I do not well understand how either this Canon which is in the Decretals C. Novit Ille de Judiciis or the other C. per Venerabilem Qui filii sint legitimi which are the two usually cited both of Innocent III. make to the purpose The former was made upon the occasion now mentioned and in it the Pope speaks thus We intend not to Judge of the Fee whereof the cognisance belongs to him the King but to decree of the Sin whereof the Censure without doubt pertains to us which we may and ought to exercise on every one None of sound Judgment is ignorant that it belongs to our Office to correct every Christian for any mortal Sin and if he despise Correction to constrain him by Ecclesiastical punishment c. Where the Pope saies Correct the Gloss adds Indirectly which single word and that not explicated is the main Authority for the distinction of Direct and Indirect Power now in question The other Canon per Venerabilem was made upon this occasion Philip Augustus of France had put away his Wife and taken as I remember the Countess of Anjou and had Children by her These Children at his request the Pope Legitimates while the suit yet depended of the validity of his former Marriage For the King alledged it was invalid But as the Example of Kings is apt to be follow'd Some body leaves his Wife too and has Children by another Woman and then sollicites the Pope to Legitimate them as he had done the King's The Pope refuses to yield his Request but withal owns a Power to have granted it if he had found it reasonable and proves it by several Arguments and amongst other passages has these words We exercise temporal Jurisdiction not only in the Patrimony of the Church where we have full power in Temporals but in other Countries also casually upon inspection of certain Causes These certain Causes the Gloss interprets to be when He is required Now both these Cases seem to me far enough from the inferring the Deposing Power which was not at all in question but Legitimation in the one and Cognisance of a Temporal business in the other And though the Pope assume both yet he is very sollicitous to prove they are within his Sphere as both may be and yet nothing follow in behalf of his Indirect disposing For he may Legitimate Children in order to Spiritual capacities and leave them in the same condition in which they were before as to Inheritance and other Temporal concerns Again He may Judge of Sin and punish it in his own Court with Spiritual punishments and let Temporal punishments alone to whom they belong the Temporal Magistrate And since he expresly limits himself to Ecclesiastical punishments methinks it is to strain Logic a little to far to infer out of them a right to Punish by Deposition However in my opinion this difference in the manner of Explicating this Power sometimes Casualiter sometimes Indirecte sometimes Ratione peccati which differ sufficiently though they Cite the Authorities indifferently as if they were all one is a sign they were at first not very cleer in this business in Explicating which they hit it no better Notwithstanding the Indirect Power has at last got the Vogue and most
prepared to lose an Earthly Kingdom But 't is ridiculous to say I am ready to be depriv'd of my Kingdom if I renounce my Faith but not by any Sentence of Man but will have Sentence pronounct against me by the Angels in Heaven The Church would be very imprudent to receive into her bosom a Man who would without controul afflict the Members of the Church and not suffer the Faithful to be freed from his Tyranny by any Authority on Earth Thus Bellarmin more zealously than wisely say his Adversaries Such fine discourses never vvere nor are ever likely to be made but by the King of Vtopia Kings vvho receive Christianity think not of such subtleties nor imagine they are to treat with their Spiritual Instructors vvith those nice Cautions which they use in making Leagues and Treaties of War and Peace with their fellow Kings To make Protestations and other provisions of Security against Chances they never do and none but a man cunning in Chican ever would think of as if Baptism were a bargain made in Law wherein if by misfortune the Writings be not exactly drawn a man forfeits his Title to his Purchase or a man becomes liable to Eternal damnation for the fault of a Scrivener is a conceit of a more subtle reach than is like to proceed from the simplicity with which men deal in the concerns of Eternity However if Bellarmin do put such thoughts into the head of a Pagan he may very justly protest I desire to be made a Christian and intend to live like one and submit to the Discipline of that Law which I am going to imbrace but I mean to keep my Regal dignity and Prorogatives inviolate and do not intend to be put by Baptism into a worse condition than now I am in My Subjects are now my Subjects and I intend they alwaies shall be so For my self if I deserve it I refuse not to be expell'd from that Society of which I shall have made my self unworthy But as I had my Subjects before Baptism I will not that Baptism shall take them from me I am a King while I am no Christian and if I cease to be a Christian will not therefore cease to be a King God not Baptism gave me a Crown and none but God shall take it away A Pagan say they may warrantably declare thus much and warrantably even according to Bellarmin himself who teaches that the Law of Christ deprives no man of any right and when a King becomes Christian he loses no Right or Dominion but gets a new right to the Kingdom of Heaven for else the Benefit of Christ would be a prejudice to Kings and Grace destroy Nature As for the Comparison betwixt him who pretends to the Freedom of a City and him who pretends to Baptism the Protest which Bellarmin enters in his behalf is indeed ridiculous and overthrown by his very pretence for a Member of a City must by his very being a Member be subject to the Laws and Magistrates of that City And so a King if he become a Member of the Spiritual Commonwealth becomes subject to the Laws and Magistrates and Punishments of that Commonwealth which are Spiritual and may be inflicted on a King as well as other men considering their own Natures purely and abstracting from Circumstances which in the case of Kings are generally such that if it be lawful it is seldom expedient to use them but for Temporal punishments He is himself the Head of that Commonwealth which should inflict them and must either punish himself or cannot be punisht but by God So that to say by his becoming a Member of the Spiritual Commonwealth he makes Himself liable to Temporal punishments is to say in the Case of him who pretends to be made a Citizen That by making himself a Member of that Corporation he subjects himself to the Laws of another But to leave these speculations to them who Write of New Atlantis and the Isle of Pines The Argument say they is doubly faulty for it assumes what is not true and concludes what does not follow though the Antecedent were true First they deny any such bargains are made in Baptism There is indeed an express whether Promise or Purpose to Renounce Satan and his Pomps but of Renouncing the Right of Kings there is not any expression vvhich sounds like it and for secret bargains they are so secret if there be any that they are known to none but Bellarmin They have lain hid for many Ages and do so still for any credit they give this Argument He would infer it out of the disposition which our Saviour in S. Luke requires in him who vvill be his Disciple And this disposition of preferring his Love and Service before all things they acknowledge is necessary in Baptism and that Man unfit for it vvho does not firmly purpose so to do But the Question is If the King chance to break his good Purpose is He therefore liable to this particular punishment of being Depos'd This particular Condition must enter into the bargain or nothing will come of it Otherwise our God-fathers and God-mothers have undertaken for all of us that vve shall do all that the greatest King Promises in Baptism And we all forfeit the Surety they have given and break the Promise solemnly made in our behalf and sin daily and grievously Can we therefore without injury be turn'd out of our Estates We must be prepar'd as vvell as any King to lay down our lives for the Faith of Christ if for Fear or other frailty we fall even to Idolatry is it therefore lawful to knock us on the head or if it vvere Can the Church or Priest before whom vve made this Promise which vve have broken give Sentence of bloud against us How justly soever we deserve to be punisht yet this punishment is not just because we never submitted to it in Baptism or any other way and if we did the Church of all the vvorld can the least inflict it But the truth is no such punishment vvas ever thought of either by the Givers or Receivers of Baptism If vve do not continue constant to our Renouncing of Satan Satan vvill take possession of us again to whom the Church may vvhen there is just occasion by her Power deliver us And if Satan be not punishment enough even for a King and the Wickedest King that ever was or will be I am mightily mistaken Bellarmin therefore vvas less considerative than vvould be expected when he talks every where as if Kings unless they were liable to be Depos'd would be vvithout punishment Methinks Excommunication might serve turn Excommunication vvhich as himself saies L. 3. de Laic C. 2. is a punishment greater than Temporal death It being more horrible as himself Cites S. Austin to be delivered to Satan by Excommunication than to endure the Sword or Fire or be devoured by Wild Beasts Death is the last of punishments with us of the Temporal
a form of Imprecation not a Legal Decree as when he saies a little after And let him be damn'd in the lower Hell with Judas the Traytour c. or as the stile of Bulls now is Let him know he shall incur the Indignation of God c. For they think that for the Pope directly to command People should be damn'd is not very commendable in him nor very wise in any who should think he does so Wherefore to look upon these kind of expressions as other than Threats by which men may be frighted from Wickedness they conceive is both against S. Gregory's Sence and Common Sence too The next is the Example of Gregory the Second who forbad Tribute to be paid to Leo the Iconoclast and this is one of those Stories which Onuphrius reckons amongst Fables and Platina expresly denies for he saies the Italians were so exasperated against the Emperour that the Pope was feign to interpose his Authority to keep them from choosing another Emperour So that till the matter of Fact be agreed 't is an uncomfortable and useless Employment to busie our selves with thinking what will follow out of it There follows the Deposition of Childeric King of France by Pope Zachary with vvhich they make quick work and positively deny it not that the King was Depos'd but that he was Depos'd by the Pope The French indeed consulted him as they might have done any other whose Credit they had thought useful to their purpose vvhether were more truly King He who managed all the Affairs of the Kingdom or he who had the bare Title but medled with nothing And He answered the former And this was all he did for the rest what was done was done by the French themselves Not but that 't is likely he understood well enough the meaning of the Question and was inclin'd to favour Pepin all he could but he did no more and those who did have long since given account to God of their action I know not of what humour the French were in those times but he that should at this day maintain in France The Pope has Power to Depose their King would go neer to be confuted with a Halter The Seventh and Eighth Examples are The Translation of the Empire to the Germans and setling the Electours who are to choose the Emperour This is a Question of vvhich Bellarmin has written Three entire Books and is of more both importance and labour than to be treated with any exactness in a Letter That which Withrington Answers is in short That the Pope concurred to the Translation of the Empire and Nomination of the Electours not as acting by his own sole Power but as one who for the place he held had much and perhaps more Interest in the business than any other To which purpose he Cites Mich. Coccinius saying that The People of Rome and the rest of the Nations of Italy opprest by barbarous People and not only not protected by the Grecians but ill used too and afflicted by their Avarice and Imperious humour transfer'd the Empire from the Grecians to the Germans in the person of Charles the Great And 't is not to be doubted saies he that this Translation was made and had its force and efficacy from the Consent and Authority of the People of Rome and the rest of Italy And whereas Innocent the Third Writes to Bertoldus That the Apostolic See transfer'd the Roman Empire from the Grecians to the Germans We do not grant the Apostolic See transfer'd it otherwise than by Consenting to those who did or by declaring it ought be transfer'd but the Translation had its force and strength from the Consent of the People To which purpose he alledges also Card. Cusanus speaking in this manner Whence the Electours ordain'd in the time of Henry the Second by common Consent of all Germans and Others subject to the Empire have their Radical Power from this common Consent of all who by the Law of Nature could choose themselves an Emperour not from the Pope in whose Power it is not to give a King or Emperour to any Country in the World without its Consent But to this concurr'd the Consent of Greg. the Fifth as of the single Bishop of Rome who for the Degree in which he is has an interest in Consenting to the Common Emperour And rightly as in General Councels His Authority concurs in the first place by Consent with all the rest who make the Councel the force nevertheless of the Definition depends not on the first of all Bishops but on the common consent of all both of him and the rest This is what they say How far it is to be allow'd is another Question The Origin of Empires and Rights of Princes are things I have more disposition to admire and reverence then Dispute In the mean time here are Eight of his Twelve Examples which you see are all Contested how rationally you will judge Those which follow are of Gegory the Seventh who Deposed the Emperour Henry and Three Popes more who followed his Example to which he might have added several other it being acknowledged that after Gregory the Seventh had once begun many have imitated him and almost all claim'd a Power to do so But as He was the first unquestionable Author of that till then unknown Fact so they maintain that Fact was unjust in him and not allowable in any of his Successours They Answer then first with Jo. Paris That Arguments are not to be drawn from such singular Facts which proceed sometimes from Devotion to the Church or from some other Cause and not from Order of Law And with Greg. Tholos From hence I gather only that 't is a difficult Question Whether Popes can Depose Emperours or Kings who formerly had Power to make Popes Besides there are found divers Depositions of Popes by Emperours as well as of Emperours by Popes so that there has been a great Vicissitude in these things Whence 't is a bad way of Disputing to argue from Fact and the Examples of Deposition Out of all which Ambitious disturbers of the Commonwealth Vsurpers of Kingdoms and Rebels to their Lawful Princes may gather first That every Deposition of Princes is not therefore Just because it has been done for all Facts are not Just and secondly That no such Consequence ought to be made there is an Example of such a thing therefore the like may be attempted again And in the words of Bellarmin himself De Rom. Pont. L 2. C. 29. speaking to the Instances in which Popes have been Depos'd by Emperours Such things saies he have been done but how justly let them look to it 'T is plain that Otho the First Depos'd John the Twelfth with a good Zeal though not according to knowledge for this John was one of the worst Popes that ever was And therefore no wonder if a Pious Emperour as this Otho was but not so skillful in Ecclesiastical Affairs conceiv'd he might be Depos'd
especially since many Doctors thought so as well as he For 't is one thing saies he in Tortus to bring Examples of Kings saies he of Popes say they and another to prove their Power and Authority Secondly They Answer that if it be a good Proof that a thing may lawfully be done which has been done before the Wickedest things in the world may be prov'd Lawful People may lawfully Rebel Public and Private Faith may be broken Commonwealths may be overturn'd c. for all these things have been done And without more adoe Popes may be Depos'd by Emperours as well as they by Popes for that has been done too Lastly and with a little more smartness They say this way of Proof plainly begs the Question and assumes the very Point in Dispute Bellarmin affirms and his Adversaries deny the Pope may justly Depose Princes now to Argue He has Depos'd them therefore He justly may assumes That what he has done is Just which is the very Point they Contest with him and therefore think it had been something shorter and altogether as much to purpose to have said 'T is Just because 't is Just. Every body knows Popes have both challenged and used a Deposing Power but every body is not satisfied that this Power is justly due to him Bellarmin undertakes to prove it is and brings for an Argument That he has us'd it which no body denies and would have that conclude That therefore he justly may which if his Adversaries had thought a good consequence they had not put him to the trouble of making it For they knew and acknowledged the Antecedent enough before But they think the Popes did amiss who did so and if barely saying that they did the thing be proving they had right to do it they confess they are in the wrong but if it be not Bellarmin is so and should have considered that barely to say his Tenet over is a kind of Proof which takes with none but very good natur'd People and as far as I see his Adversaries are a little more stubborn I am so weary with long Writing that I must intreat your permission to refer what remains to another opportunity I will hope I have said enough to quiet your suspicions and am sure I have said so much that I need some quiet my self and must take leave after so long a Journey to rest a while Your c. The Ninth and Tenth OF THE Controversial LETTERS OR Grand Controversie Concerning The pretended Temporal Authority of POPES over the whole Earth And the True Sovereign of KINGS within their own respective Kingdoms Between two English Gentlemen The one of the Church of England The other of the Church of Rome LONDON Printed for Henry Brome and Benjamin Tooke at the Gun at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard 1674. FRIEND I Expect that which you say remains with much impatience and t is only to tell you so that I now write for I do not intend to give you my thoughts of your last till I receive your next Only let me tell you it wambles in my stomack I know not how and works not kindly but because your next possibly may fully settle me I will not yet complain But methinks this next opportunity of yours is long a coming Have you been sick or diverted with business of greater consequence then clearing your self and your Church from an aspersion of which I take no joy to tell you the suspicions are more pregnant than I wish they were For 't is undeniable that Tenets inconsistent with Government are maintained among you You say they belong not to Religion and that indeed is something but not enough This may serve in some measure to justify your Religion but nothing at all to clear your selves For what matter is it whether your Religion be innocent if all that profess it are guilty though upon another account If you think these Tenets true you will be apt to practise them at one time or other although they do not belong to Religion Religion indeed is the strongest Principle of action but not the only one It is no part of Religion that two and three make five but yet if you do think to pay a debt of five pounds with twice forty shillings no body will deal with you And if all the Papists in England adhere to these Doctrines whether this adhesion of theirs proceed from Religion or any other motion the men will be unsafe and irreconcileable to the security of their Country let the Religion be what it will But if there be any who think them false it were convenient both for the satisfaction of their Prince and Fellow subjects and the interest of the thinkers People should know who those any are We cannot know your thoughts unless you acquaint us with them And because we have reason to believe that some do hold them and no reason to believe of any particular man but he is of the number till he disclaim them what can we do but involve you all guilty and innocent if there be any such in the same condemnation of diffidence You tell me the French plainly and openly condemn them The honester men they and the more shame for some body that there should be more honesty found in France then England You should do as they do though t' were but to be in the mode In all their airy toys their Feathers their Perukes their Pantaloons you can follow them fast enough But when they play the men and set you examples of prais-worthy actions there you are content to be out of fashion as if it were an honor to be as light as they and a shame to be as wise But pray what security is it to England that they are good subjects in France If they were knaves all over the rest of the world and we all honest at home it were a great deal better for us than that they should be honest abroad and we knaves at home I perceive indeed by what they do that you tell me true when you say these Tenets are no points of your Faith But then methinks you should have the less difficulty to disclaim them Unless perhaps you think them true which if you do either make them out to be consistent with goverment or you will not be consistent your self I tell you plainly I shall think ill of you if you think well of these Doctrâ—nes unless you can shew them innocent and safe which as far as I perceive you do not go about to do and when you offer at it may I believe with as much hope of success offer at the Philosophers stone In other Countrys you tell me They are more reserved and will not say you can not but you shall not And I believe you have liv'd in those other Countrys and suck't their Polities with their Air. But for my part I must confess I am for the mode once in my life and would be of the French fashion in this
teach enough of all conscience we know well enough what will follow without the help of his inferences and know that twenty worse things will follow then subordination of powers But is Bellarmin in earnest too and will he reduce the Catholick Church to the narrow compass of those who believe his Doctrine How Lawful general Concils teach and that evidently that Princes may be deposed Why what a hand has he made on 't His Friends Coton Sonran and the rest of the Jesuites who by a publick declaration disavow'd and detested this doctrine were no very honest men by his reckoning The French are all direct Hereticks without more ado and I fear it will go hard with the Pope himself who so freely and openly communicates with them As for my small acquaintance they are all in as bad a case as Falstaffs old Hosts if sack be a sin They 'l be mall'd to my knowledg If he do not make amends with the weakness of his proofs for the confidence of his assertions we are all undone But the comfort is that all Catholicks are not of his mind For this very Book had the luck to light into a certain Catholick Country where it was publickly condemn'd and the men who did it did not for all that think they contradicted any thing evidently taught by lawful general Councils But let us see what those Councils say The truth is since of ten which he cites 2 only are general 8 might have been spared For particular Councils according to his own doctrine are not so irrefragible but what they determine may be brought into doubt But we must take his Arguments as they are His first Council is 900 years old under Greg. 2. wherein he would make us believe the Emperor Leo Isaurus was excommunicated and depriv'd of the tributes which he us'd to receive out of Italy And this is one of the stories which Onuphrius takes for fables Bellarmin alledges for proof for the Council is not extant the testimony of Zonaras a Greek Historian whose words are these Gregory who at that time ruled the Church of old Rome involved them together with the Emperor in a synodical Anathema and making a league with the French forbad the tributes which till that time were paid from thence to the Empire Barclay answers that he mistook the meaning of Zonaras thinking that those 2 several things because they are joyned in one period hapned therefore at the same time 'T is true that either this Pope or his Successor Greg. 3 did in a Synod excommunicate not the Emperor particularly but Iconoclasts in general 'T is true that Greg. 3. made a league with the French or rather fled to their protection from the injuries of the Lombards from which the Emperor either could or perhaps would not defend him And therefore Writers who say that after this league Italy withheld their usual Tributes though the matter of fact be not altogether so clear but none say they withheld them by the authority of any Council As far as can be gathered the exasperated people were willing to keep their mony for their own defence and not by sending it into Greece expose themselves defenceless to those injuries which they either suffered or feared And thus far there is mention of the Pope's consent and even countenance at last for he opposed the sway of the people a good while and by his authority preserv'd them in their allegeance to the Emperor yet sided with them at long run in this keeping their mony at home But for deposing the Emperor much less in a Synod neither he nor any body else thought of it on the contrary to his dying day he acknowledged him his Emperor and Lord. Whether the People or he did well in doing so much as they did is another question which belongs not to me to determin But I suppose it is no wonderful thing that a remote Province of a great Empire should upon some dissatisfaction fail at some time in their duty and the men of greatest Authority among them joyn with them This is standing upon their terms more then becomes subjects but 't is not deposing and much less deposing by the Authority of those great men who take their part One might as well say the Prince of Orange by his Authority deposed the King of Spain from the Low Countries because he was the Principal Actor with those who fell from him But to make short work with our case there was in it I think no deposition at all But if this Tribute matter must be called deposition to that concur'd no Council and betwixt them both 't is plain there is no Argument There comes next in play the famous business of Greg. 7 which takes up 6 Councils more These because they belong all to one subject you shall give me leave to respit till I have rid my hands of his next Council which belongs to another 'T is the Council of Clerment where he says Vrban 2. excommunicated and deposed Philip. 1. of France for casting off his lawful Wife marrying an Adulteress and refusing upon admonition to make satisfaction For this he cites M. Paris and Sigebert I have not seen Sigebert but M. Paris who particularizes the Acts of the Council and among the rest this excommunication makes no mention of deposing I but sayes Bellarmin deposition must be understood to go along with excommunication Marry I thank him heartily Vnderstood quotha Is our evident teaching come to understanding and understanding those things to be the same than which the world has none more different Excommunication is a pure spiritual censure and deprives a man of none but pure spiritual goods deposition is quite contrary and takes away only temporal It passes my understanding how one of these must necessarily follow out of the other Pray why must we understand it does Because says he Historians testify the Pope forbad the Crown should be set upon the Kings head while he remain'd excommunicate and in particular Ivo Bishop of Chartres writes to the Pope that he would be threatned unless he restored the Crown and took off the excommunication that the King and Kingdom would fall off from their obedience Very well Why then according to Ivo there was a King still and that King had a Kingdom and so much credit in it that 't was not impossible but he might cause it to revolt These things do not hang together A man may as soon understand how excommunication and deposition infer one another as how a Crown can be restor'd to one who is a King and has a Kingdom or how the Pope should forbid the Crown to be set on his head who had been crowned long before the Pope was Pope 'T is hard and not very wise to forbid things that are past If this mystery had not been unridled for me I had been quite at a loss But if I may believe Barclay and Withrington it was at that time the custom of France for the King
bolt Those who were Actors in these matters have long since given account to an Impartial Judg nor have I to do with their intentions but Bellarmin's argument which in two words I conceive little efficacious both because the concurrence of the Council seems questionable farther than as it happens sometimes in consistories where matters are propos'd in some cases for forms sake and shall be executed as they are preresolved however the Cardinals vote And though it were not the Council at most is but a particular Council which according to Bellarmin himself is of no irrefragable and binding authority For the rest 't were strange if the Pope should not find Bishops enough to joyn with the spiritual power when the Emperor wanted not who stuck as fast to the temporal And so much to 8 of the 10 Councils We are now at Paulo majora canamus The two Councils which remain are propos'd with more pomp and in truth challenge a greater respect as being general Councils both The first is that of Lateran under Innocent 3. out of which is urged the famous Canon known by every one and which for as much as concerns us runs Thus But if a temporal Lord required and admonisht by the Church neglect to purge his land from this Heretical filth let him be excommunicated by his Metropolitan and Com-provincial Bishops And if he stand in contempt and make not satisfaction within a year let the Pope be made acquainted that he may from that time declare his Vassals absolved from their fealty to him and expose his lands to be seiz'd on by Catholicks who chacing away the Hereticks may without contradiction possess and preserve it in the purity of Faith saving the right of the principal Lord provided he bring no obstacle nor hindrance to the Premises observing nevertheless the same rule with them who have no principal Lords Bellarmin is wonderfully agog with this What says he would Barclay say here If this be not the voice of the Catholick Church where shall we find it and if it be as most truly it is he that out of contempt as Barclay hears it not is he not to be esteemed a Heathen and a Publican and in no manner a Christian and pious If the Pope have not power on earth to dispose of temporals even to the deposition of those Princes who either are Hereticks themselves or any way favour Hereticks why at the setting out this Canon did none of so great a number make opposition Why of so many Embassadors of Emperors and Kings not one who durst so much as mutter These Parasites to temporal Princes were not yet sprung up who under pretence of establishing temporal Kingdoms take away the eternal Kingdom from those whom they flatter I marry here 's a fit of triumphant zeal But I suppose if he had cast a little water on the flame it would have been hot enough for the occasion This Parasites and Flatterers Heathens Publicans and Impious are expressions a little too zealous In what a case are they who condemn'd all this zeal and had they not had more respect to his Purple then his argument in all likelyhood had burnt it too and yet had as good ears in the opinion of the world as Bellarmin and could hear the voice of the Catholick Church as soon But to be serious what Barclay would have said here I cannot tell but I suppose if Death had not stopt his mouth he would have said something For this Canon is no such secret that he could be imagin'd ignorant of it or unprovided against it At least his son did find something to say for him to which I can no more tell what Bellarmin would say then he could what Barclay would say to the Council I shall have occasion to mention part of what he says by and by In the mean time as this Council never fails to be layd in the way of all who travel this road people have several turns to avoid it There are who question whether any thing at all was defined there at least in a Conciliar way or if any thing were defin'd that the world was duly made acquainted with the business For which besides that some Historians expresly say nothing was concluded they have these presumptions The Canons which we have discover by their stile that they were not made in the Council They run some of them in this manner It was piously provided in the Lateran Council 'T is known 't was forbid in the Lateran Council c. which are phrases very unlikely to have been used by the Council if that fram'd the Decrees Again the whole authority of this Council rests as far as I see upon one Cochlaeus The Councils had been set out and this omitted either not known or not procurable by him who managed the business Against another Edition this Cochlaeus furnisht the Press with the Copy which we now have Whence he had it himself I know not but methinks the credit of a private man is a weak support for a matter of this consequence Besides how much time ought in reason be allow'd to a Conciliar discusion and determination of threescore Canons Carenza has threescore and ten and somewhere I have heard of another number which disagreement by the way is a suspicious thing M. Paris tells us the Council was summoned for the first of Nov. and met I suppose at the day The Pope first makes an exhortation afterwards causes 60 Chapters to be read and concludes with a second exhortation concerning the H. Land All this as far as can be gather'd by him past in one day which if it did the Council could not possibly contribute more than the hearing to any thing Besides he plainly says these 60 Chapters to some appear'd easy to others burthensome which is very far from a Conciliar approbation Now he says not precisely when the Council ended but 't is apparent by him that it lasted not long The Pope in this Council at the Kings instance suspends the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury This suspension bears date pridie nonas or 4th Nov. Besides he vacats the election of his Brother Simon Langton to the Sea of York and excommunicates the Barons of England These sentences are not recorded as the other but in liklyhood past at the same time M. Paris mentions immediately the end of the Council Quo facto after which says he two of the three Agents which the King of England had there returned to bring him the good news They found him at Rochester from whence he marched to St. Albans and came thither time enough to have the suspension of the Arch-Bishop attested by the seal of the Convent 13 Calend. Jan. or 20 Decemb. By this account how long could the Council last Or how much time could be spent in duly weighing so many Canons some of such importance when men who had seen the conclusion of the Council which began not before Nov. were in England by the 20th of December
nothing of the jealousy and suspicion rising from the unlimited expressions of this doctrine Upon the whole they seem plainly to grant all the inconveniences objected by VVithrington which is to confess that as far as this Topick is effectual They are confuted They slight the place as nothing to purpose notwithstanding since 't is the Gospel rule to judge of the Tree by the fruit and since Logick allows the Topick I think they were oblig'd to shew either that the inconveniences were not inconveniences or else that they did not follow and in fine have answered better if they could The fourth Argument is from the practice of the Church begun with the Church it self and continued for many ages no mention in Scripture or ancient Fathers of a power either in Pope or People to deprive or kill even persecuting Princes but all is unanimous and constant exhortation to patience and obedience Now if there be any warrant in the Gospel for Christians when they come to be strong enough to cast off such Princes as are enemies to the Church we must needs have heard of it c. VVithrington dilates but this is the substance They answer two things First That the practice of the Church varies according to different times That for the first 300 years she practis'd patience because she could do no other there being no Prince dispos'd to protect her afterwards it became the practice by means of Catholick Princes to resist Infidel or Heretick or any way injurious to her whether Princes or People And for this they largely instance in the several expeditions made for the recovery of the Holy Land all commanded say they by several Popes and their commands obey'd by Christian Princes I begin to suspect I do not understand what we are talking of if I do certainly this is nothing to it I thought the question had been whether subjects may lawfully desert their own Prince and refuse to perform the obedience due to them by Law and Oath upon the Popes command to the contrary and Sculkenius talks of one Prince making war with another No man doubts or if any do our business has nothing to do with his doubt but that Catholick Princes may lawfully make war and the Pope lawfully perswade them to it to protect innocence and hinder oppression whether of Ecclesiastical or other right But this is a case betwixt Prince and Prince ours if I understand it is betwixt Prince and Subject For my life I cannot understand what relation the holy war has to this matter nor can I imagin what share the Pope had in it more then a man of zeal and credit to perswade them as any other might have done to a good work I do not believe any Prince who went thither thought himself oblig'd by the Popes commands or that he commanded any to go except in the case of Vow or the like engagement of his own 'T was zeal not obedience which carried Princes thither In short if Schulkenius mean this practise which he says was introduc'd of resisting force by force of Princes interposing for the relief of innocence as they saw occasion he speaks of another matter If he mean that when subjects get force enough they may use it against their own Soveraign upon warrant of the Popes authority he teaches us a piece of Christiatity which I would advise should by all means be kept carefully conceal'd from those Infidels whom in the Indies and elsewhere zealous men seek to convert If ever they get any inkling farewel all hopes of the progress of Christianity 'T is in truth a position extreamly false and extreamly shameful Their second Answer is that Withrington is out when he affirms there is no mention in Scripture or the ancient Fathers of deposing or killing Persecutors For there is mention in both of Saul depos'd by Samuel and David plac'd in his room Of Agag kill'd Of ten Tribes taken by Ahias from the house of David and given to Jereboam Of Kings set up and pul'd down by Elias both in Israel and Syria Of Jehu made King by a Prophet and Joram both depos'd and kill'd Of thalia and Ozias one kill'd the other depos'd for Leprosy Of Hieremy plac'd over Nations and Kingdoms to pluck up c. Of the Macabees fighting successfully against Antiochus And it cannot be doubted but the High Priest among Christians has as great or greater power then the High Priest among the Jews where they repeat again the two places Mat. 16. and Joh. 21. and that deposing power is necessary to the integrity of the commission given by them and conclude with Lucifer Calaritanus who says nothing to the purpose Some think Bellarmin wrote this book and borrowed the name of Schulkenius to disguise his own Tenderdown Steeple had as much to do with Sandwich Haven as this with the Deposing Power It were easy to shew as much of every one of these examples if I would take the pains to run them over particularly but since Bellarmin himself slights them I may be permitted to do so too and save that labor I will only observe that the High Priest among the Jews interven'd in few of these examples and to conclude a power in the Christian High Priest by a parity with the Jewish High Priest from instances where there was no exercise of his Power is a shortness of which Bellarmin was too sharp-sighted to be guilty That which Lucifer Calaritanus says is that Constantius was a wicked man and deserved death which is Tenderdown Steeple again A Prince no doubt may be a wicked man there have been more in the world besides Constantius and more have taken notice of their wickedness besides Lucifer Calaritanus But what then Neither does he mention nor do I know any tribunal which can call them to account for their wickedness but that of the last day from whose impartial Justice Princes shall be no more exempt then other men And to that we must leave them The last is rather a Transition then an Argument at least the force of it depends on what follows Withrington makes it in this manner To subject Princes to another power without sufficient reason is plain injury to Princes and plain treason But Bellarmins reasons which are the best are insufficient c. And so goes on to examin and disprove them as I have already inform'd you They reply by retorting the same Argument As t is wicked to subject the Power of Princes so t is both wicked and sacrilegious to diminish the Power given by Christ without sufficient reason but the reasons of VVithrington and Barclay are insufficient c. They farther deny either that he has or can answer Bellarmin's reasons or that he has done his business though he could because another may have better But unles they would inform us where those better reasons are to be found there can be no more done then to deal with those which He who is most in vogue thought the best For
the rest these are florishes on both sides The matter rests upon this issue which of the two has the best reasons and he that has will carry it T is time for me to leave it with you to stand for the Plaintiff or Defendant as you see cause and ease my self of this ungrateful labour You see what is said on both sides To tell you what the world thinks of their sayings is not so easy The world is a politick world they let the hot men write and wrangle and for themselves hear all and see all and say nothing The truth is while one side talks of Treason and the other of Sacrilege t is good to be wary T is not for private men to make an enemy either of Pope or Prince and as the case stands you cannot say I or No without displeasing one I must confess I am very sorry you would not let me play the Policitian for company Your importunity has drawn me into the list of those fools who disquiet themselves to please other folks and take a great deal of pains to be talk't on twenty to one very scurvily The quarrel is betwixt supream Powers and they best know what to do in their own concerns I fear t is little better then sawcines for men of our form to interpose in things so far above us and perhaps madness to thrust in bewixt two stones and be crusht in pieces I see this yet cannot avoid whether the charms of your Friendship or violence of your importunity T is true I have endeavoured to touch this tender matter as tenderly as I could What I profest at first I repeat again I do not dogmatize but relate and am sure you have no reason to be displeased that I would displease as few as I could This is the reason since you will needs have it why I beat about the bush and do not shoot my fools-bolt directly at the mark I do not take the satisfaction of your curiosity to import me so much as living quietly T is for Princes to resolve on the Can not or Shall not or what else they think fit Private men till they be commanded to declare them do best to keep their thoughts to themselves This I can assure you that though for these reasons I do not desire every body should know them I have none in this matter which do not become a good Christian and a good subject and Your faithful friend c. The Eleventh and Twelfth OF THE Controversial LETTERS OR Grand Controversie Concerning The pretended Temporal Authority of POPES over the whole Earth And the True Sovereign of KINGS within their own respective Kingdoms Between two English Gentlemen The one of the Church of England The other of the Church of Rome LONDON Printed for Henry Brome and Benjamin Tooke at the Gun at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard 1674. FRIEND OF all I have seen or heard you shall have it for Policy Sir Wood-bee himself is no body to you The sum of what I askt was in two words Are you a good Subject And the sum of your Answer is Betwixt you and me I would have it thought so but make no words on 't private men must not meddle with things above them Here 's Ragion di stato for you Things above them Why is Honesty among you lookt upon as a thing out of reach Are you of kin to the Muscovite who being askt of his Faith in God and hopes of Salvation reply'd They were things above him which he should be glad were true but could not think so great a Majesty could ever think of so poor a man Is it above you to be a good Subject and a thing which you dare not confess for modesty sake and the imputation of sawciness Are things carried so among you that you must needs live unquietly if your Neighbours know you deserve to live quietly Is it become a piece of interest and policy to be ill thought of and if there be an honest man among you must he by all means make a secret on 't for fear of exasperating Supream Powers and thrusting in betwixt two stones How have I been mistaken I took you for a plain dealing man and you are the very Pink of Policy But for meer shame I could find in my heart to quarrel with you and cannot for my life but tell you you have taken a great deal of pains to little purpose Pray permit me to revenge your nicety by unmannerly bluntness and to carry it to the uttermost ask you how far you are from Pedius in the Satyr Fur es ait â—edio Pedius quid crimina rasis Librat in Antithetis The question being of robbing no less than Soveraigns Are you a good Subject is but in less homely Terms Are you a Thief And your Answers are as like as the Questions Only Pedius was for Rhetorick and you for History Some say this and some say that which is all you tell me is but Historical Antithesis You tell me I may judge as I please I know I may and I do judge as all men of judgment do But pray remember those that do not plead directly Guilty or not Guilty cast themselves Had I only desir'd to know what people say it had been no such hard matter to have got Books and read them my self and never troubled you I know the Arguments well enough and I know what to think of them but I know not what to think of you whom a man that were not as I am very favourably inclin'd would be apt to suspect you think something which you are asham'd to own No Friend You scape not so I would and if you be not very obstinate will know what you are and whether those of your Religion may be trusted If you believe what is publickly written and own'd by some among you you are not if you believe it not but yet will not disown it as honest as you are in your heart since no body can tell but you are a knave how can you expect but to pass for one among the rest Either deal frankly with me or I must with you and tell you 't is Guilt that fears the light If you continue still to make a secret of what of all the world it most concerns those of your Perswasion to publish both for your own interest and honour of your selves and Church he must be a very good natur'd man who will think well of you who make dainty to shew why he should do so You are charg'd with inconsistence with Civil Government You faintly deny it and say you are traduc't but are shy to justifie your Innocence your Church it self is call'd in question where the Books are licenc't the Authors cherisht and the Doctrines put in practice You tamely hear all this and would have us think your Church a good Church for all that a pure unblemish't Church but if we will not of our selves kindly turn away our eyes and
one and giving to another being not to take away Power it self but to translate it because there is no vvay by vvhich Civil Power can be taken away but only by translating nevertheless if he did as this is not the first time he has said vvhat he had no great reason to say I must tell him that this translating is every jot as unsatisfactory to us because 't is every jot as unsafe to our Soveraign as plain taking away For if it be taken away from him vvhoever has it next 't is taken away from him And vvhoever holds this may be done let Bellarmin speak never so subtly I must hold is no good Subject There is another distinction or two or explication or vvhat you vvill call them vvhich stick in my stomach To understand them the better it vvill be convenient to mention the occasion he had to make them Barclay in his 12th Chapter objected against his opinion that it makes Christian Princes Vassals to the Pope and hold their Kingdoms only at pleasure or precariously And this he proves by this Argument The Pope if it be necessary for the good of Souls may take away a Kingdom from one Prince and give it to another but to Judge and decree whether it be necessary or no belongs to the Pope and none must judge whether his Sentence be right or wrong Therefore he may at pleasure Dethrone the one and Crown the other Bellarmin Answers that Christian Princes must by no means be call'd the Popes Vassals and much less be said to hold their Kingdoms at pleasure But are true Kings and true Princes This goes well but yet if his opinion make them Vassals I hope they may without offence to it be call'd so But however Princes are to thank him for this confession that they are true Kings and Princes and may hope so much may for his sake pass for true doctrine Which if it once do there is so much true fidelity due to those true Kings that what takes it but indirectly away will be found directly false Coming then to speak to Barclay's Argument he says 't is faulty every where major and minor and all Still there is no medling with Schollers These two premises of Barclay are two Propositions which he has borrowed from Bellarmin himself and were very good Propositions as long as he had the handling of them but as soon as ever another but breaths on them they fade and wither to non-sence and yet I perceive no alteration in them but that before they came out of Bellarmins mouth and now out of Barclays However he tells us This Proposition The Pope may if it be necessary for the good of Souls take away a Kingdom from one and give it to another needs explication for it may be well and ill understood it may be true and it may be false I make no question but it may be and is false but I would fain see the Explication by which it may be true This it is The Pope indeed may if it be necessary for the good of Souls take the Kingdom from one but if he admonish him before if he give him time to repent if he find him pernicious and incorrigible May he so Why then your opinion for all your Buts and Ifs is pernicious and you incorrigible good Bellarmin What 's this to say but that he cannot steal his Kingdom in the dark but may rob him of it in broad day light This Admonition and Space of Repentance is in other words The Pope must first say to the King look you I deal fairly above-board and give you notice before hand that if you do not do as I would have you within such a time it may be a month or two it may be so many hours for this space of Bellarmin's is for ought I see at the Popes appointing too I will turn you a grazing and provide my good people another King I see no such matter of substance in these formalities but that they might be well enough spar'd if conveniently they could But they are a sort of impudent things which will thrust in whether the Pope will or no. For Kingdoms are no such inconsiderable trifles that they can be pass'd away in private and none know when or how Except King Phys and King Vsh none ever yet stept into another mans Throne without warning and I believe none ever will Does Bellarmine think it can happen in the world that there should be a King so tame that without more knowledge of the matter as soon as a sentence of Deposition is brought should quietly submit and turn private man and enquire no farther Kings are more inquisitive then so and stand more upon their terms and look to be better satisfi'd And though they did not Subjects who have sworn Fealty have a little curiosity in them and will be asking why and by what necessity they must change Lords and obey Peter who have sworn to Paul There goes time to all this for nothing will come of it till all parties be agreed Now Bellarmine requires no more to make his sentence just nor so much as nature will force upon him let it be never so unjust Of necessity there must intervene more time in the change of Kings then he requires to his admonition and space of repentance So that his Explication amounts in short to this The sentence were unjust if it requir'd things should pass in such a manner in which 't is impossible they should pass but very just if things be so done as they must be done in spite of sentence or whatever else to the contrary which is certainly a very trim Explication and alters the Proposition wonderfully for the better We cannot put so much as a Tenant out without warning and he would perswade us we are much beholding to his Explication for requiring as much Ceremony in the change of a Kingdom as a Farm And yet when all is done I cannot tell whether he be in earnest or no and think these Formalities so indispensably necessary that a King cannot be depos'd without them It is hard to say what Plenitude of Power may do and I doubt he would not be well look't on who should go about to fix its bounds But besides that a Case may happen where a King cannot repent though he would or at least make amends by repentance A Case may happen where he will not repent nor believe he hath reason so to do Bellarmine would perswade us Ozias in the Old Law was depos'd for Leprosie What! did the High Priest admonish him to repent of his Leprosie and not proceed to Deposition till after convenient patience with him he found him incorrigible in his Leprosie Ozias might and 't is likely did repent the fault for which he was struck with Leprosie but unless his repentance could make him clean again as to the matter of Deposition he had as good ne'r repented at all for he vvas according to Bellarmine
the Fire burns de Facto but only warms de Jure That Bellarmin is a great Scholler de Facto but de Jure none at all I know I speak impertinently but I meant to do so and yet think I speak as pertinently as he who saies Duty is only duty de Facto but de Jure not duty He might ee'n as well have made use of his Indirect here too and said the Pope was subject only Indirectly but was not subject Directly or contrariwise for 't is all one Young Sophisters sometimes when they are put to it and know not how to shift off an Argument find something or other which sounds like a distinction no matter what it signifies and whether any thing or nothing so it serve turn for the present And I doubt he remembred the trick a little too long But Subjection to Princes being prov'd by Examples and Commands This is the Reserve for Examples when they are ill-natur'd and will not be turn'd off otherwise For Commands there is another common place which now 't is known is nothing but he was a very subtle man lure that first discovered it It consists in distinguishing the same man into a Prince and a not-Prince and then interpreting all obedience we find commanded belongs to the Prince only the not-Prince has no share in it This distinction because it is indeed a little hard they attribute to the Omnipotent power of the Pope and say that the Prince till he be deposed is a Prince but afterwards no Prince and because it still falls short for the man governs and lives like a Prince still they etch it out with its fellow distinction and say he is no Prince de Jure though he be de Facto And now bring 'em as many and as plain places for obedience as you will 't is the easiest thing in the world to get cleer of them Bring Scripture bring Fathers that a Prince is to be obey'd True say they while he is a Prince but now he is no longer a Prince Princes in my opinion have hard luck to stand in the Popes way and become the first sad examples of his Omnipotence otherwise there is no Law of God or Man which may not be overturn'd as easily by the same engine For he may as soon and as well declare That Wife to be no Wife That Man to be no Man and make Adultery and Murther lawful as that King to be no King and make Rebellion innocent There would not want as likely pretences for the one as the other if people would but look after them For Example A Man is a rational Creature who acts unreasonably disclaims his nature and may be dispatch't without contradicting the Divine Law which forbids men to be kill'd while they are men but he by the Popes declaration is no man As much may be found out for the Wife as much for Estates as much for every thing For there neither is nor can be any stronger title to any thing then the Law of God and that the King has to his Kingdom and if that will not do nothing will This is just Montalto Sin but enough and you trapan the Devil and become vertuous even by being wicked To refuse obedience to a King is with them a crime and a crime which deserves damnation marry to Un-king him and deny there is any obedience due to him is an innocent thing As if taking his Power quite away were not a greater disobedience then to resist it A particular disobedience may have a particular and sometimes excusable cause but a general disobedience such as leaves them no longer any Power to command is of all disobedience the greatest most inexcusable in it self and most contrary to the Divine Law And yet he would perswade us we sin if we obey not a particular perhaps trifling Command but if we take away Power and all we are very honest men Whereas in truth when I disobey a Power which I acknowledge perhaps I wrong my self most for I do not my duty but when I no longer acknowledge my Princes Power I do him as well as my self the greatest wrong I can and yet this greatest wrong with Bellarmine is no wrong These are the healing Distinctions which Bellarmine applies to his Doctrine and by which the sound Deposing is to be distinguisht from the unsound Deposing If you find any such soveraign vertue in them I shall be glad to learn it But for our part we think Deposing an uncurable disease a poyson for which there is no Antidote Disguise it how you will while it remains Deposing 't is alike intolerable alike inconsistent wâ—th the safety of Princes and duty of Subjects Call the Power indirect call it in Temporals not temporal as long as 't is Power and can do the feat no honest ear can hear it Tell us of admonition and space of repentance tell us of Synods and Consistories of disposing the prey according to Justice of not feigning necessities tell us what you will while you tell us Deposing is good Doctrine we cannot believe you good Subjects Bring a thousand Schoolmen and ten thousand subtilties against them all we will stand by our honest Parliament Doctrine That the Crown of England is and alwayes has been free and subject immediately to God and none other and who refuses his Fellowship in that Doctrine I know not with what face he can pretend to a Fellowship in any thing else But the truth is I do not see that Bellarmine with all his art does so much as guild the bitter Pill or make it a jot less nauseous For what is the very worst the Canonists say Take their opinion in his own expressions and he says all they say and in terms as positive and as comprehensive Take Carerius or whoever is the highest flyer among those I sent you at first and the worst is but this That the Pope has jurisdiction over all things both spiritual and temporal throughout the world that he may absolve Subjects from the Oath of Allegeance Depose Kings and transfer their Dominions from one line to another And which of this worst does Bellarmine with his proper Distinctions and cautious Buts deny 'T is true they call his Power Direct and Bellarmine Indirect but what matter is it how they are called if one can do as much as the other And I would fain know what they can do with their Direct which be cannot with his Indirect 'T is true they make but one absolute Monarch of the world and all the rest but arbitrary Lieutenants and Bellarmine cals them true Kings but makes them as much subject as if they were but Lieutenants Were Kings perswaded once it were their duty to resign at the Popes command they would themselves make no difficulty to call and think him their supreme Lord. 'T is only in consideration of the scurvy consequence which would follow viz. that being supreme and absolute Lord he might dispose of his own as he
a condemnation without more ado Neither did they well know at first on what bottom to fix This Indirect came in afterwards As far as can be guest they thought because the Pope was Superiour over all Christians he might therefore come and all Christians any thine Since the business coming to be debated they cast about for waies to maintain it and the Indirect way pleases most though it be not yet well setled some thinking it as much too little for the Pope as others too much But whatever they think I fear both the one and the other is ruinous to the Church For neither can pretend to be believed but for some reason and this reason since it cannot be the same for which we believe other points of Faith there being manifestly no such thing as uninterrupted delivery in the case must be something else which as well as It must pretend a vertue of inducing belief And that being a Rule of Faith which has power to settle Faith here is a new Rule of Faith brought into the Church and with it all the Incertainâ—y and all the confusion blamed in the most extravagant Sect and this even by her own confession who thinks her Rule is the only means to avoid that incâ—rtainly and that confusion This Rule is manifestly discarded by a new one For she cannot with any face pretend all she teaches was delivered to her if it be pin'd upon her that she teaches what was not dâ—livered and if She lose the pretence to all she will keep it to none since it cannot appear but if she have once deserted her Rule she has don 't oftner And then farewel Church Once take away the Rule and the Church must of necessity go after She has no solid ground of Authority but the stediness of her Faith no stediness of Faith but the stediness of her Rule break that once and there is neither Authority nor Faith nor will within a while be Church left So that in good earnest I do not think the malice of all her profest enemies could â—ver do the Church so much harm as the zeal of her unwary Friends At least for my part break but the Chain once and I know no more any certain way to Heaven than the veryest Enthusiast among all those Sectaries who rove blindly for want of a sure Guide and should find my self as much at a loss That any thing must be believ'd but what was taught by Christ or that any thing can be known to be taught by him but by the constant belief and practise of intermediate ages is what a Catholic should neither say nor endure to hear for it manifestly takes away Divine from Faith and all the advantage we profess in our method above others to come to Faith leaving us as much benighted and as much to seek and as small hopes of success as we object to those whom we think stray most and are most in the dark Wherefore salvo meliori as far as my short prospect reaches To bring Deposing Faith into the Church is a ready way to depose the Church I cannot tell whether I should more wonder or grieve but I am sure I do both to see men so intent upon the maintenance of an Opinion which they have espoused that they forget the honour and safety of the Church and to observe a certain supercilious gravity with which they labour to discourse these things into Faith and Religion should so far impose upon the world that they do not discover thâ—y are quite contrary and destructive to both But no doubt there are enough who see all that is to be seen but if they be no more forward then I to say all they think they are in my conceit the wiser By the favour of your earnestness it is no commendable disposition in private men to turn Reformers on every occasion and when they see any thing amiss step presently in and make a bustle in what concerns them not Let those who Govern the world and shall severely answer for those miscarriages of which They are the cause look to their duty Ours is to live quietly and unoffensively and trust God 's Providence Your importunity has carryed me farther than I intended But you have now your will of me and know I for my part think the not-deposing doctrine is the truly Catholic doctrinâ— Did I think otherwise all your importunities and all considerations in the world besides should not perswade me to it I hope you now find I said true when I told you my thoughts of this matter were such as bâ—came a good Christian and a good Subject and afford you no occasion to change yours if you had any good of Your c. FINIS The Thirteenth and Fourteenth OF THE Controversial LETTERS OR Grand Controversie Concerning The pretended Temporal Authority of POPES over the whole Earth And the True Sovereign of KINGS within their own respective Kingdoms Between two English Gentlemen The one of the Church of England The other of the Church of Rome LONDON Printed for Henry Brome and Benjamin tooke at the Gun and at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard 1675. FRIEND YOU had sav'd your self and me some trouble if your last had been your first I almost despair'd of doing any good upon you and perceive that exsculpere verum out of one of your humour is one of the hardest tasks in the world But since 't is come at last I regret not my own pains and for yours it was in your power to have spar'd them But yet I have not done with you The Pope is a crafty Gentleman and has more strings to his Bow then one Shut the door never so fast it is hard to keep him out If St. Peters Keys will not open the lock He has St. Pauls sword to cut it off Not that I apprehend any great danger from downright fighting 'T is a Trick he shews as seldom as he can And he has reason for Kings overmatch him at that weapon But Justice has a sword too and that so sharp that I should be very sorry to see it in his hands Now that there may be justice without deriving it from Pasce Oves or Dabo Claves and that it may belong to him as well as others and by the same means And that he actually has heretofore and may when he please again set on foot pretensions upon this Title to part perhaps all his Majesties Dominions is something too evident to be deny'd and of too great importance to be neglected It is a thing which has long disquieted me with uneasy thoughts but I must freely avow to you I was never so sensible of the danger as since I read the Considerations of present Concernment You are so much concerned in that Book that I must needs suppose you have seen it and observ'd how much may be replyed to what you have said to me But I am for the present so intent upon what 's before that I cannot reflect
by Election or succession or Force came to be Emperors I mean till the Empire was translated to the West for as he had a great hand in that translation he has ever since appeared more but I speak of the times before And all this is evident beyond all dispute Reconcile this who can with Constantins Donation If he put the Pope in possession of the Western Provinces how could he bequeath them to his Son And if he put him not in possession how could he be said to give them It is a mockery not a gift to say these Provinces are yours which I keep to my self during life and dispose to others after my death Livery and Seisin are pretty material circumstances in such conveyances where nothing can be understood to pass without them If Constantine gave them the Pope must have had them and that he had them not is as plain as History can make any thing where it is particularly with uniform consent recorded in whose hands these Western Provinces were what changes hapned from time to time and by what means from the death of Constantine till the Arms and favour of France under Pipin and his son Charles put into the Popes possession most of what he has It is known and by Bellarmine himself confest that Popes during those times were Subjects at least de facto which is enough for our present purpose there needing no more to shew they had not those Countries which Constantine is said to have given to them Not but that both he and divers others after and before him too were extreamly munificent to the Church by which munificence much Land in several places was setled on her by way of Alms and actually in her possession But she enjoy'd the revenues only of those Lands Administration of Justice and all Regalities were reserv'd to the Temporal Lords This has deceiv'd some who finding mention of Possessions belonging to the Church in former Ages imagined they so belonged to her then as they do now with entire and independent subjection Whereas till Popes were by the liberality and power of the French rais'd to the state of Temporal Princes the Lands of the Church were in the same condition with the estates of other Subjects the immediate owners receiving the Profits and both their Lands and Themselves subject to the supreme Lord. They were given to other Churches as well as Rome for maintenance of the Clergy and Poor for the expences of buildings and reparations and Divine Service and that so plentifully that some refused offered Patrimonies others restored what they once had not willing to be burthened with more than was needful These Lands paid publick duties as other Lands did till the Laws exempted them But these things are besides the matter To return to our Argument if the successors of Constantin continued the only known Masters of those very Countries which are said to be given away if Popes acknowledg'd them for such as well as the rest of the World and never so much as put in any claim or pretended any thing to the contrary And all this be so plain that nothing can be plainer no fiction can be more palpable nor more wild than this of Constantin's Donation It is undeniably evident that neither Popes nor Emperours nor any body else in those dayes knew any thing of it And it is as evident that they must know of it if it had been at all At least if they did not none else could in after times This Donation was not heard of in the World till long after Baron ad an 1191. n. 52. Marca de Conc. Sacerd. Imp. l. 3. c. 12. Baronius thinks the pretended Charter forged by the Grecians after the tenth Age Marca by the Latins in the time of Pipin and by his consent to stop the mouths of the Grecians who made instance that the Lands recovered from the Lombards and by Him given to the Church should be restored to the Empire However it be for the Time or Author of the fiction that the Charter is a meer and late forgery is acknowledged both by Baronius and by most of the learned men even of the Popes Communion That the Donation cannot be pretended with any shew of Reason but in force of the Charter is plain For 't is next to madness to say the West was given and produce no Evidence of the Gift Any man may claim any mans Estate with as much colour and the Pope from such a claim can expect no more success than another man But there is nothing which can be alledged in proof of this Donation besides this Charter Wherefore the whole business of which you seem to be jealous is in it self a pure Chimera absolutely contradicted by the course of Nature and consent of History and the only Evidence producible for it acknowledged a forgery by our selves And if this give you much disquiet I cannot but think you wonderful fearful Let the worst come to the worst 't is not the case of England alone France and Spain and Germany were Western Provinces as well as Britain and as much concern'd as we While we have such Outworks we need not much fear our Fort. The truth is our safety depends in reality on them For let his Right be never so good till it have seiz'd on them it cannot fasten on us and when it has we cannot escape let it be never so bad Mean time I think you may sleep quietly on the noise which will be made in the World when any of these Countries leave their native Princes and become subject to a Forreigner and quit their long setled Customs and Laws and Liberties in reverence to Constantin's Donation will wake you time enough But if you sleep till then you will go near to be the 8th sleeper and alone out-slumber all the seven Thus far of our Journey we have good company with us and the best part of Christendom being of the Caravan travel with security enough But now the Road parts and we must shift for our selves Henry II. say you from Baronius acknowledged the Kingdom of England Fendatory to the Pope in a Letter extant in Petrus Blesensis You might have added the Cardinals Comment upon the Popes confirmation or rather approbation of K. Stephen's election which he says was therefore mentioned in the Coronation Oath because the Kingdom was feudatory to the Pope Baron ad an 1135. 21. so that every new King receiv'd confirmation from him Which also was acknowledged by Hen. II. in the Letter of Blesensis Ad an 1172. n. 5. Besides he produces afterwards from the Acts of Alexander III. a clause of the Oath made at the conclusion of the difference upon the death of S. Thomas of Canterbury wherein the Kings both Father and Son are made to swear That they will receive and hold the Kingdom of England from the Pope and neither they nor their successors repute themselves Kings of England till the Popes for
so many Copies as have been made from the time in which he lived till the time his works appear'd in the world it may have been alter'd Vestrae Jurisdictiones est Reg. Angliae quantum ad Feudatarii Juris obligationem vobâ—s dumtaxat obnexius teneor Experiatur Anglia quiâ—d possit Rom. Pontifex quia materialibus armis non utitur patrimonium B. Petri spirituali gladio tucatur Pet. Bles Ep. 136. And indeed who considers what goes before and what comes after will see the two periods which concern this matter do not well fit the place The letter demands Counsel of the Pope upon the undutiful carriage of his Children whom though he could reduce by force to their duty yet the affections of nature hindring him from that course He prays the Pope to interpose to whose arbitration he promises to stand And this hangs pertinently together But then to make the King say that England is feudatory and wish it may feel what the Pope can do suits so ill with the rest that it seems no part of the original piece but patcht in by some body else and he but a botcher For what is it to purpose to mention Vassalage where He only seeks advice As if the Pope could give counsel to none but Vassals and as if it were the custom of Vassals to have recourse to their Lords for counsel It is Justice and Protection which Vassals expect from their Lords and this the King would have demanded of the Pope if he had been his Subject And then He tells him that He has no material Arms which is as much as to say that He is not supreme Lord. For Soveraignty without material Arms is no very material thing and indeed is not Soveraignty So that the King is made very wisely to say and unsay with the same breath Again while He himself abstains from Rigor to press the Pope to the utmost rigor he can use agrees very ill-favour'dly Besides Blesensis dedicates his Letters to this very King Whoever knows any thing of his humour and how positive he alwayes was in maintaining less rights of the Crown than its independency will not easily believe he would permit such a clause to pass and much less become publick He was more jealous of his Authority than so Farther had such a Letter as is now read in Blesensis been ever sent by the King Baronius sure would have met with the original somewhere or other For certainly the Vassalage of England and Patrimony of St. Peter here are things of that importance that it deserved some more than usual care to preserve an Evidence so extraordinary and not to trust to chance and the credit of an insignificant Copy for so great and so unknown an advantage of the Church For if Blesensis had never been printed the thing had never been heard of If such proofs as these may be hearkned to against Kingdoms truly their Fate is very hard and much worse than of the meanest Subject who lives in them He that in a Suit but of 40 shillings should produce no better were sure to be cast I conceive there is no great necessity of saying more because sentence will alwaies be given for the Defendant where the Proofs of the Plaintiff are insufficient but yet let us look into the matter a little farther and see whether this fancy of the Cardinals can be reconciled to Nature and History And I consider in the first place that the Tenure of Kingdoms is no private thing to be guest at by incertain testimonies pickt up and down among Authors of doubtful credit but known as much as the Kingdoms themselves and no more concealable than their forms of Government It may as well be doubted whether they be Kingdoms or Commonwealths as whether they be independent or no. At every death at every change of a King there must be in Vassals recourse to the supream Lord his consent required Homage performed Duties paid and all publickly in the face of the world it concerning the supream Lord and he alwaies taking care that these demonstrations be made with the greatest shew that can be In all Treaties in all Letters and whatever transactions the stile betwixt Independent Princes is different from that betwixt Lords and Vassals In Competitions for the Crown one part would alwaies fly to the supream Lord and he by his influence make his Superiority appear A hundred things of this nature must of necessity be registred in authentick records and read in the Histories which treat of our matters Baronius little reflected on the nature of the business when instead of producing Authentick Records whereof there must have been many at Rome as well as here if there had been any such thing he alledges Blesensis It cannot be said that the Records are lost by Time and Accidents For their number in a case so often hapning would preserve at least some of them and he has found records both more antient and of less concern Besides Histories remain still Whoever among so many as have writ ever mentioned any homage done by our Kings to the Pope or any confirmation required Many letters are still extant from the one to the other and no hint of subjection in any of them There have been many Competitions for the Crown and none of the Pretenders ever dream't of fortifying their claims by the Influence of his supreme Lordship though for the Influence He had as supreme Pastor they desired to make him their friend In fine not to insist upon the silence of Histories and Records and want of proof in Baronius it is evident that the Vassalage of a Kingdom not evidently to appear is evidently not to be because it cannot be without being notorious and known to all who know the Kingdom In the next place I would fain understand when and by whom the Kingdom could be or rather was made thus subject to the Pope For I wave at present the want of power in Kings to do such a thing if they would and only enquire which King it was who can be supposed to have done it If the suspition fall on the times of the Heptarchy which Age and want of Writers render more obscure it is apparent that no Act of any King then could be binding to the whole Nation For no King let him be never so absolute can bind more than his own Kingdom But besides that He who will recur to those times may indeed hide himself in their darkness but cannot strike out of them any light to his pretence and must speak purely out of his own head without any warrant or colour from any other Author so I think 't is a good argument that no such thing was then done because things of less moment which were done then are remembred The grant of Peter-pence by Ina of the West-Saxons and Offa of the Mercians is recorded too plainly to leave a suspicion that the grant of a Kingdom could be concealed While
there was exactness enough to take notice of single pence the Crown sure could not pass by unregarded If any man fancy want of fidelity in our Historians might possibly suppress so ungrateful a Truth let him produce those more faithful Forreigners who have recorded it But considering the Zeal of those times and mighty opinion they had of Rome when the greatest Kings frequently became Pilgrims and sometimes left their Kingdoms wholly and became Monks there the suspicion lyes on the other side it being more rational to fancy an amplification than suppression of things to their advantage However such an Alms as a Kingdom could not but make a noise loud enough to reach even our ears and had the Romescot charity been extended to the Regalities we must have heard of it as well as of private houses By the way I am not ignorant what Comments have been made on that Alms but I think it not convenient to lose time in confuting them 'T is to give them more credit than they deserve for he enhances the value of Trifles who treats them like things of moment The memory of passages since the Heptarchy is too fresh and too minute to leave place for suspicion that a matter of such moment should scape unobserved And besides there is among the Works of Lanfranc a Letter of William the Conquerour to Pope Gregory VII which puts the matter out of doubt That Pope had the confidence to demand of that King an acknowledgment of subjection Fidelitatem or Fealty as the phrase runs I know not upon what ground For though I have read somewhere that the Conquerour to gain the Pope to his side when he attempted the enterprize promis'd in case of success to hold the Kingdom of the Pope Ep. Lanfranc VII yet it appears by the Kings answer that he was mistaken who said so Fidelitatem facere nolui nec volo says the King quia nec ego promisi nec Antecessores meos Antecessoribus tuis id fecisse comperio So that till the Conquest England was free and that it became subject since sure no body will imagin The first Kings of the Norman race were men of too great spirits and contested with the Pope about matters of less importance too warmly to be suspected of giving away their Kingdoms He that reflects what bustles there were about Investitures in the dayes of Henry I. and Immunities of the Church in the dayes of Henry II. will find it neither likely nor possible the greatest rights of the Crown should be thrown away while Princes were so tenacious of the less It is true that both these Kings yielded at last to the Pope but with a condescendence so far from any sign of subjection that there was more of appearance than substance in the first case and a great deal of caution in the second no subjection nor shew of any in either The Contrast between Henry I. and the Pope was about Investitures the King desirous to continue the custom of ratifying the election of Bishops and Abbots by delivering a Ring and Staff to the Elect and the Pope resolv'd to break it The conclusion was that the Ceremony should no more be used but so that the King should chuse or cause to be chosen the person and receive homage from him that was chosen Investituram Annuli Baculi indulsit in perpetuum retento tamen electionis regalium privilegio says Will. Malmsbury Upon the same terms In Hen. 1. lib. 5. a few years after the same difference was compounded with the Emperour in which if I understand any thing the same expedient was then used which is generally observed since To preserve reputation and Appearance to the Pope and substance to Princes For while They had the chief influence in elections and none could be promoted but by their interposition the rest was a Ceremony which might without any great prejudice be left off Again when the persons Elect were by homage to acknowledg themselves Subjects to their Princes they had as much as they desir'd Indeed till this point was yielded by the Pope for it was a while stifly stood upon no agreement could be made But after Peace soon followed The quarrel of Henry II. was about the Customs of Clarendon in which the chief point was that of Appeals This point the Pope gain'd of the King yet with this caution that the Appellant should give security to attempt nothing to the prejudice of King or Kingdom It was now a time if ever for the Popes supreme Lordship to appear He was in the humour of asserting at least all that belong'd to him The World was incens'd against the King for the foulness of the late murther and ready to take the Popes part The King found it necessary to buy his peace even at the rate of pretensions very dear to him and for which he had long and earnestly contended Had the Pope been supreme Lord he would hardly have scaped so good cheap Murther and Sacriledge might have cost him the whole Kingdom For feudatory Lands are forfeited by great crimes However this supreme Dominion must needs have appeared in the transaction The King was not in case to refuse any thing due to the Pope who yielded up what till then he thought not due and besides the tenor of the agreement must have been quite different and drawn in terms us'd betwixt Vassals and Lords But instead of an acknowledgment of this nature all the disadvantage the King had in treating could not prevail with him to acknowledg the Pope so much as Pope longer than the Pope should acknowledg and treat him as King So that by the favour of the Cardinals Acts this King left the Crown as free as he found it nor can the King be yet found out on whom the suspicion should fall of having made it subject If I am not much mistaken the Popes in those daies were of a judgment very different from that which Baronius has taken up in ours For how can the conceit of a Vassalage in the time of this King consist with what hapned a little after in the reign of K. John Neither could K. John make England tributary if it were so before neither could the Pope desire he should Besides disobedience in a Vassal and what is more stubborn contrasting with a supream Lord especially when that supream Lord is the Pope would sure have been thought as great a crime as refusing an Archbishop made without his privity and against his will Why was not this laid to the Kings charge and called Rebellion When the severity of the proceedings against him perhaps needed all the colour which could be laid on Without all doubt the Pope when he had the King at his mercy would never have been contented with the bare acknowledgment of subjection if he had known subjection was due before He had prosecuted the King to the utmost extremity Interdicted the Kingdom excommunicated his Person and at last deposed and
unfitly is not what the world means by Right Right to do ill sounds very like Right to do wrong and is in this case neither better nor worse For if arbitrary placing of Governors be against the good of the Commonwealth and Right or Just signify as much as Fit or Good and that as at present it must with respect to the Commonwealth there is a Right in the Commonwealth which requires their Princes should not be set over them arbitrarily and those arbitrary dispositions of the Crown were manifestly against Right And yet perhaps it is enough that they were unreasonable and unfit For unreasonable Actions are no more to be drawn into consequence than unjust ones and peradventure bind no more where collateral considerations do not give them a strength which they have not of themselves I have alledged these considerations more to hint what may be said than because I think nothing else can For after all it may with truth be maintained that the power of the first Norman Princes and of the Conqueror himself as well as the rest was actually confined and in the manner our Author would have it by voluntary Concessions long before Magna Charta and the establishment of those liberties to the subject which he supposes confine it now They all took Oaths at their Coronation and bound themselves to the observation of Justice If an Oath do not bind a Prince an Oath deliberately and solemnly made in the face of God and Man in a matter too mainly concerning the good of the Commonwealth for whose security he gives that Oath and which she accepts as full security there is no talking of Confinement upon him of security to a Commonwealth of Laws and Obligations and Compacts but all must be left to the arbitrary unconfin'd pleasure of one man a Position which is the Freedom of this part of the world I suppose will not find much entertainment However it is the strength even of Magna Charta it self which cannot confine a Prince if his Oath do not first confine him to observe it Now who swears to render Justice undoubtedly swears to render Justice to the Kingdom in the first place For the concern of the whole is the concern of all particulars every one being as much and perhaps more interested in the Rights of the Kingdom than in his private pretensions If any man doubt of this I suppose no Englishman at least will doubt but that he is to acquiesce to the Judgment of Parliament And it is positively declared by Parliament 40 Ed. 3 that the Fact of K. John was contrary to his Coronation Oath in which nevertheless for ought I can find there is nothing more than general expressions of rendring Justice However it be since it is a judged case that K. John broke his Oath in his arbitrary disposition of the Kingdom it is a judged case that his Power was confined in that particular and this independently of Magna Charta and all subsequent Compacts And if his then sure of all the rest for they all swear as much as He. But if any man will continue stiff in this opinion and believe nothing able to confine the arbitrary power of Conquerors but their own Concessions I would entreat him to direct me to that Concession which has confin'd their power in this point besides their Coronation Oath I do not find either in Mag. Charta or any where else any Article concerning the disposition of the Crown Learneder men may know more but my Ignorance perswades me that if the Norman Princes had such a Right and that Right can only be restrained by voluntary Concessions and those direct to the point their Successors have it still And 't is not easie to be perswaded otherwise till the Concession appear But this no Englishman can either say or think nothing being more notorious than that it cannot be done now Whoever will take the pains to examin how it comes to pass that this original power is now restrained will not easily be satisfi'd if nothing else will satisfie him but a direct Concession I believe he will be forc'd to confess at last that such a Concession is neither extant nor needful and acknowledg that Power is bounded as truly and as strongly by Nature as Grants Upon the whole I conceive there may in the first Norman Princes be considered the Power of Conquerors and Right of Kings That their Power was unconfin'd enough but ought not be drawn into Precedent although it be against all Reason and Justice to question now those effects of their Power which remain among us even to this day For these have strength not from their Power but from what is able to turn Unjust into Just as Titles originally bad become good in process of Time That even their Right was confined the very notion of Right implying limitation For right signifies proportion of the Action to the subject so that an unconfined Right is not Right That their Right was confined in this particular by the good of the Kingdom as has been discours'd before and though it had not Right to what they did is very far from inferring Right to what K. John did the two remarkable precedents mentioned by our Author being so remarkably different from this case that they can be no Precedents nor warrant for it William Rufus reigned after his Father and excluded his Brother in truth by the favour of the Kingdom yet claiming by his Fathers Testament That claim may be allow'd without allowing King Johns resignation For in the Conquerors fact there was no more then of two sons both fit both equal to the Kingdom to prefer whom he thought fittest The Laws and Liberties and condition of the Kingdom was the same under either so that apprehending in likelyhood no greater interest in the business than whether their King should be called William or Robert They approved the Fathers choice and willingly obey'd whom he appointed But King John's Fact was quite of another strain A Stranger and such an one who could never become a denizen one taken up with other cares and dwelling too far off to be ever able to act as was fitting for the good of England was made the supream Lord and which was worse the Tenure of the Kingdom altered and of free turn'd into subject The Kingdom was sensible of their Interest in the business and disclaim'd the fact both then and ever since I am mistaken if Reception of Laws be not generally held a very material consideration to their validity But the cases are otherwise so apparently different that a Right in the Conqueror to dispose of the Crown as he did may safely be granted without any necessity or colour of allowing in consequence a Right to King John to dispose of it as he did If Henry 1. succeeded in vertue of the same Testament his case is the same with the former But this Gentlemans information was better than mine if he had other Title than
the Children of his elder Brother who were Heirs not to John but Richard and by John wrongfully excluded This Lady never married but liv'd to a good Age M. Paris ad an 1241. Y podig. Neustriae p. 59. one example of many of the little comfort there is in unsupported greatness She dy'd in the year 1241 and was buried among the Nuns of Amesbury to whom by permission of Henry III. She gave the Mannor of Molsham Her Right was buried with her but while she lived it cannot be said K. John had no Competitor This being so all pretence from K. Johns Fact is cut up by the roots there being not so much to be said for it as that himself had right to what he gave away And yet for my part I think if he had had a Right as unquestionable as our Author supposes it is equally unquestionable that his gift was no more valid than if he had had none Whether I have acquitted my self of what I undertook and shewn the three material points of our Authors discourse viz Consent of the Barons undoubted Right and unconfin'd power in K. John are all mistakes I am not to be my own Judge It is the readers right and to him I leave it To pass farther and examine what else is urged seems needless When the Root is dig'd up the Branches may be let alone and I am far from taking pleasure in contradicting especially a man whose Learning and Candor I esteem Yet because peradventure to neglect what he says may shew more unhandsom than to dissent from it I shall briefly deliver my opinion of the rest In the next point viz. That the Popes Title was the more confirm'd by his uninterrupted Practice I think He is mistaken too 'T is true that Henry III. did at his Coronation take an Oath of Fealty to the Pope the same which his Father had taken before And there was a very pressing necessity which oblig'd him so to do Lewis Son to the King of France was in the Bowels of the Kingdom with a strong Army and many of the Nobility took his part The King was a Child unable to do any thing for himself and forc'd to depend entirely on those who would assist him Among these the Pope was the most considerable whose Legat was with him and with unweari'd earnestness laboured for his Interest It was not for him in such a conjuncture to break with the Pope For it was evidently to ruin himself So that 't was wisely done of his Councel to provide for the greater danger first and leave the rest to time It is true also that King John made use of this subjection to annul his concession to the Barons But it does not therefore follow there was no Interruption The Archbishop of Canterbury protested at very first and in the name of the whole Kingdom the Barons refus'd to submit to the Popes sentence and stood to their obtain'd Concessions notwithstanding his Excommunications the French rejected his claim with great ardor solemn opposition was made in the Council of Lions both by King and Kingdom in the reign of Henry III. succeeding Kings positively deni'd all marks of subjection and were abetted by unanimous consent of Parliament A Practice so much opposed I think cannot be called uninterrupted Opposition sure is Interruption or at least as good For the the act of one part can never confirm a practice The Pope may do what he pleases but unless the Kingdom do something too his Title will never be confirmed It may be said that the Tribute was paid by Henry III. suppose it were what is this to the Kingdom Henry III. could not be hindred from disposing of his own and paying what and to whom he pleased But his Act cannot be thought binding to the Kingdom unless the Kingdom consented And the Kingdom was so far from consenting that it positively dissented Wherefore the practice being urged as a Title to the Kingdom it seems very plain that this Title was so far from being more confirm'd that it was not confirm'd at all nor could be by any practice of the Popes unless the Kingdom had concurred to it The next point that the Pope never solemnly devested himself I conceive not to purpose For if his Title were never good 't is no matter whether he ever disclaimed it or no. And yet if the Author of the Eulogium said to be in the Cotton Library be of any credit this too may be deny'd For he expresly says that in a Parliament at London 1214 where the Clergy cum tota laicali secta were present the obligation was by the Popes command wholy releast For my own part I must confess I know not how far this Author may be trusted not finding any mention of so remarkable a passage any where else But though his credit be obscure this is clear that if K. Johns Act were invalid of it self there needed no Act of the Popes to make it so And I take it to be no less clear that it was invalid and that we may spare the labour of inquiring whether the Pope ever gave away what he truly never had The last thing urged is that the Pope admits of no Prescription which if it be true the less reason have we to put our selves upon that trial But I think it is not true For the Canon Law allows Prescription and that against the Church of Rome as well as any other Only by way of Priviledge more time is required to bear her Plea than others But I have already declared I like not to enter into that dispute It depends on Law a study which the Interests and Passions of men have embroyl'd with so many intricate perplexities that 't is little better than a labyrinth without a Clew Nothing in my opinion is more fruitless nor perhaps more dangerous than to submit the Rights of Princes to disputes where there will be alwayes something to say and not half of what is said understood but by men of the Trade Besides there is another Consideration which to my Judgment absolutely excludes this Topick Prescription is a Plea establish't by the Civil and Canon Laws which appoint the cases the persons the times and all conditions of it Who has a Suit depending in a Court where sentence is pronounc't according to those Laws may be concern'd to study the nature of it but with us where neither Law is in force it seems wonderfully from the purpose to amuse our selves with it What have we to do to examin whether our Possession have all the conditions required to Prescription by those Laws which themselves signifie nothing If they pronounce sentence for us we are not a jot the better and if against us not a jot the worse England is a Country Independent of Forreigners and govern'd by Laws and Customs of her own What Emperours and Popes think fit to establish among their Subjects concerns us no more than what we do concerns them By our
claim to Ireland independently of this Grant So that whatever Pope Adrian mean't it is evident his Successors never understood his meaning gave them any right to that Island Nothing is more foolish than to catch at words and interpret the meaning by the sound when we have Actions immemorial practice and custom to guide us securely and assure us the meaning whatever it be cannot be contrary to these Allow that method once and you leave no stability even in what the good of mankind requires should be most stable the settlement of Commonwealths In short if our Kings Title to Ireland be not good there is no good Title in the world At least I know none establish't on a surer foundation And were it the question believe I could make it out But we are not now enquiring what Title our Kings have but whether the Pope have any For which reason I forbear to meddle with the Book you mention which seeks to overthrow the Title of England not to establish that of the Pope Only in short I must acknowledg I never read any thing with more grief nor so much shame The best is the Curs't Cow has wondrous short horns As ill as He means in my opinion he does more good than harm For Truth is well proved when 't is perceived it cannot be disproved but weakly And nothing is weaker than his discourse What is most material is directly contrary to History but his chief business is to bring as you say hard names to prove what is not a jot to purpose when 't is proved He casts away the greatest part of his pains upon the Punctilios required to Prescription by the Civil and Canon Laws in Suits betwixt Subject and Subject and never considers that those Punctilios and those Laws have nothing to do with the case and that the Rights of Princes are establish't upon a higher and more steady Basis than local and mutable constitutions But I have discours'd of this point before and mean not to trouble you with repetitions and that in a Question which concerns me not No better answer can nor other need Hist of the Irish Remonst p. 739. 742. be given to this Book than what was given in Ireland where an 1648. the supreme Council of the Confederat Catholicks caus'd it to be burn't at Kilkenny by the common Hangman and the National Congregation too of the Irish Clergy I mean Roman Catholick at Dublin an 1666. condemn'd it to the same fate And for the rest whoever doubts of his Majesties right to all and every part of his Dominions is a Traitor without more ado and cannot complain if he be us'd like one nor any body for him This answer I conceive may serve for Scotland too with which I shall make short work believing your Jealousies in that particular are not very pressing The only stumbling block that I know in this matter is the letter you cite of Boniface VIII to Edward I. in which Mat. Westm ad an 1301. with a phrase as unintelligible as that of Adrians Bull it is said qualiter ab antiquis temporibus Regnum Scotiae pleno jure pertinuit adhuc pertinere dignoscitur ad Ecclesiam supradictam meaning the Roman And again ex quibus nulli in dubium veniat Regnum Scotiae praelibatum ad praefatam Rom. Ecclesiam pertinere While I read this Letter and the Kings answer I was inclin'd to believe the meaning of this was that the Pope as a common Father of Christendom had right to interpose in emergent differences in Scotland as well as other places I observed that he alledges Debitum Pastoralis Officii for the reason why he meddles and respect to his seat and Person for the motive why the King should yield to his request Again the Ex quibus whence he concludes this subjection are because Scotland used not to admit a Legat not particularly directed to that Kingdom That the Arch Bishop of York could not obtain sentence at Rome in favour of the Primacy claimed by him over the Scottish Churches and that the Kingdom was converted by the Relicks of Saint Andrew These have so little to do with Civil subjection to Rome and what he mentions besides has a great deal less that I could not imagine a Pope from such Premises could draw such a conclusion Besides that the King in his answer does not take the least notice of such a sence But coming to read the answer of the Nobility to whom the King purposely left that point I percieve they understood the words as they sounded I shall therefore give their answer and make an end Your letters being read say they tam sensibus nostris admiranda quam hactenus inaudita in jis audivimus contineri Scimus enim nec ullis temporibus ipsum regnum in temporalibus pertinuit vel pertinet quovis jure ad Ecclesiam vestram supradictam and again nec etiam Reges Scoterum Regnum aliis quam Regibus Angliae subfuerunt vel subjici consueverunt Pursuant hereunto They would not consent the King should send Proctors as the Pope desir'd to Rome to make out his Title there nay they declare They would not permit the King to do it although he would it being too great a prejudice to his known Rights to submit them to Trial. If this do not satisfy I know not what will At least it did satisfy the Pope who in Pol. Virgils words statim refrixit Pol. Virgil lib. 1â— in Ed. â— ut scilicet si pertinacius contenderet ne inhoneste causa caderet and never that I know touch't upon this string more And It must satisfy all Englishmen For it was a resolution of Parliament or at least of a great Council of the Nobility which in those days was equivalent I Am come to the end of your Letter and I think of writing too Unless you do something on your side besides asking questions painful to resolve and fruitless when they are resolved you have my last it may be your full wish my first too For I cannot answer it to reason to continue sowing in barren ground and believe while so much trouble is coming on us all your self would counsel me not to run into more that of breaking my brains to no purpose There has been already said what I hoped might have wrought more favourable inclinations towards us Since the Physick works not whether by your indisposition or its own inefficacy 't is peradventure to play the foolish as well as unskilful Emperick to go on administring But yet since Losers have leave to talk permit me to make use of that liberty it may be the only one which I shall long enjoy As much reason as I have to grieve yet truly I cannot but wonder as much at your proceedings Can it possibly be your interest to keep a party alwayes in fear of the Law and by that fear prompted to wish a change in it I mistake if it be not the
a little how the world has gone and goes with those who gratify you in this matter What was the event of that unwearied constancy which the learned Withrington shew'd in it He lost his good name his Friends all comforts of life all sweetness of society with those of his own communion and had not so much as Liberty from you but liv'd and dy'd a Prisoner Walsh succeeds him in learning in fidelity in constancy and in all likelyhood fortune He has appear'd so far in this business that I believe he thinks it not safe to appear in any part of the world where the Pope bears sway and yet for ought I know has as little security at home as abroad His Liberty and Life are at the mercy of every informer it not being in the power of any Judge before whom he shall be brought to save him from the punishment appointed for Treason Harold is another who has appeared in this cause with the same success He lives confin'd in a convent of his own order in or near Bruxels because he refuses to retract the Irish remonstrance without an express saving of fidelity to his King This by the Congregation de Propaganda at Rome was judged a captious exception and the man is by the Internuncio of Bruxels confin'd against his will and notwithstanding the permission of his own Superiors to retire elsewhere Coppinger and the rest of the regular Remonstrants in Ireland to say nothing of other and those many and grievous vexations are either actually banisht by the late Proclamation against Bishops and Regulars or live in extream danger and fear of being discovered and expos'd to the law by those who hate them for their constancy to the Remonstrance And this is the sate of all who gratify you with those testimonies of Loyalty which you are perpetually urging Time was when you objected against me that we had an unintelligible way of Government among us Permit me to say I can as little understand yours He was a wise Prince who caused the Oath of Allegiance to be made with design to distinguish the dangerous Principles which he thought concurred to the Powder Treason from others which were innocent Who can understand why those who by that Distinction are found on the right side should always be in worse condition than those who are on the wrong Did K. James or the Parliament when they establisht a Distinction by Law mean to find out the Innocent by their distinction that they might be the worse for their Innocence To impute Danger and Treason to one part and punish both and the not-dangerous and not-Traitors more For so they are though not by you This is the effect of your Distinction though sure it was never the design The Act seems made to distinguish the Treason for which you say we suffer from the Religion for which you say we do not And when all is done they are not so much as exempt from the punishment of Traitors who by this Act are exempted from the guilt of Treason Withrington was no Traitor his actions and writings clear him sufficiently Walsh is no Traitor on the contrary he has given proofs of Fidelity which few could and fewer perhaps would And yet the Law looks on him and may to day or to morrow pass on him as a Traitor Truly it is not intelligible at least to my dulness how it should be for your interest that things should be carried in this manner This I know that while they are so few will comply with you I mean where with a safe conscience they may For Hopes and Fears are the main motives which carry human nature and 't is not to be expected people should gratifie you when they have nothing to hope and more to fear than when they do not For my own part I think you very unreasonable to quarrel at me for being conceal'd and single At least I am not so unreasonable as to court any man by joyning with me to run the fate of Walsh and Withrington and will avoid it my self as long as I can I relish not their uncomfortable condition finding it uncomfortable enough to live in perpetual fear of the Laws But I declare they shall not take hold on me for Treason For I again disclaim those positions which you say are Treasonable More I could and would say to you if none saw my letters but your self But thus much I profess to all the world and besides that I am Your very humble Servant This following Quotation out of Dr. H. Ferne late Bishop of Chester should have been inserted with those other Quotations taken out of Dr. Stillingfleet c. which you have before at the end of the Protestant Gentleman's Letter pag. 7. But the Book of the said Dr. Ferne which has it came not to hand soon enough to insert it there And yet being so directly and fully to purpose I would not omit giving it here I Believe and do suppose there are some Popish Priests who in the simplicity of their hearts and out of meer Conscience of Religion do labour the propagation of it whilst others more directly are guilty of Seditious and Treasonable Practices It is my wish there could be a distinction made between the one and the other that the punishment which the Law adjudges all Priests to that are found within the Land might only fall upon them who are indeed guilty of such practices which being so frequently found in their predecessors and the State being not able to distinguish between them who are all Missionaries of Rome caused those Laws to be made for the security of Prince and State And if they that come into the Land without any Treasonable intent do suffer for it they must thank their fellows as the above-mentioned Seculars do the Jesuits whose restless attempts forced the State to forbid them all entrance into the Land under pain of Treason To conclude it is not Religion nor the Function nor any Ministerial Act belonging to it that is punished in Romish Priests but Treason and Seditious practices to which Religion Sacraments Ministery of Reconciliation and all that is reputed Holy are made to serve and all this to advance and secure the Papal Vsurpation Dr. H. Ferne in his Book entituled Certain Considerations of present Concernment touching This Reformed Church of England Printed in London 1653. Chap. 5. Paragraph 9. Pag. 169. FINIS The Fifteenth and Sixteenth OF THE CONTROVERSIAL LETTERS OR Grand Controversie Concerning The pretended Temporal Authority of POPES over the whole Earth And the True Sovereign of KINGS within their own respective Kingdoms Between two English Gentlemen The one of the Church of England The other of the Church of Rome LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun and Benjamin Tooke at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-yard 1679. FRIEND I Have got a new Flea in my Ear which you must needs pull out It is like enough my importunity may not be over-welcom and you
said for them but since they do not their part is to do their Duty in what concerns them to do and rely upon God for the rest Then for the Contradiction between the two Laws The Divine Law saies Bellarmin obliges us to preserve the True Religion Human only to have this or that Man for King Where is the Contradiction say they Cannot I keep this Man for my King and keep my Religion too A body would â—kink that this is very possible to be done The contrary to that Divine Law is You shall not preserve the True Religion and if any Human Law command this Disobey freely in God's name for Aequum est obedire Deo magis quam Hominibus But while you disobey this Law which you cannot without offending God obey do not refuse to acknowledge your Prince and obey him there where you offend God if you do not obey Again the contrary to vvhat he calls the Human Law is You shall not have this or that Man for Prince or which is all one You shall not obey him in just Commands Bellarmin has not yet produc'd any Command of the Divine Law which saies this nor vvill till Rebellion become a part of Gods Law In fine Whoever persists to put a contradiction betwixt Fearing God and Honouring the King will be Confuted by all the Bells in the Parish Lastly Whereas he makes it only by Human Law that this or that Man is King they Reply vvhat you have more at large in a former Letter That He becomes King as the Pope becomes Pope by Human means but when he once is so Obedience to him is by Divine Right and so if there be any contradiction betwixt Preserving our Religion and Obeying our Prince the Divine Law contradicts it self For as Preservation of Religion is Divine Law so Obedience to Princes is Divine Law too If Bellarmin be not pleas'd vvith these Answers they leave him to make better himself retorting as they are very good at Reparty his Argument against a scandalous Pope for he say they exposes Vertue to evident danger For such as the Ruler such will be the Inhabitants And Gods Law is to be observ'd when 't is contrary to Human Law and Gods Law obliges us to preserve Vertue and 't is by Human Law only that this or that Man is Pope c. And so we come to another Argument from the parity betwixt an Infidel Prince and an Infidel Husband whom the Apostle allows the Faithful Wife to leave and therefore Why are not the Faithful People as free in respect of an Infidel Prince In Answer to this they Dispute several things with exactness enough and examining the particular Cases where and how far and why Divorce is lawful find several Disparities and several Reasons why the Argument concludes not But to leave those Considerations which are not without their perplexity this Reply of theirs seems very plain Bring say they a Permission from the Apostle for a Subject to desert his Prince as plain as this is for a Woman to leave her Husband and we vvill acknowledge the case is equal The Apostle plainly derogates from the general Rule and brings an Exception wherein the Law of Marriage binds not He that was so careful of Private concerns cannot be imagined unmindful of Public and greater Had he known any Exception from the general Rule of Obeying Princes it is not to be suspected he would conceal it and testifie more care for Private Families than Commonwealths So that the Argument amounts to this We are free from the Law in cases where the Law is dispenst with therefore we are free likewise where 't is not dispenst with Again say they the Woman is only then free when the Man refuses to live vvith her for if he stay S. Paul wishes her to stay vvith him Now if any Prince refuses to Govern his People unless they vvill become Infidels like himself I think they will allow the People are not obliged to turn Infidels for his sake but may get them another in case he leave them But if the King will stay with his People since the Woman is to stay with her Husband who vvill be with her they think the very parity concludes the People oblig'd to stay vvith their Prince Otherwise the parity stands in this manner Even as the Faithful Woman is not to leave her Unbelieving Husband who vvill continue vvith her even so the Believing People are to leave their Unbelieving King who vvill stay vvith them Or even as the Believing Woman is free from an Unbelieving Husband who casts her off even so the Beleiving People are free from an Unbelieving King vvho does not cast them off Which methinks are something unlike for Parities The next Argument is of great esteem with Bellarmin He made it in his Book De Rom. Pont. and repeats it in Tortus and urges it largely against Barklay This it is Princes are receiv'd into the Church with this either express or tacit bargain to submit their Scepters to Christ and preserve and defend their Religion and this under penalty of forfeiting their Kingdoms if they fail Wherefore if they become Heretics or an obstacle to Religion they may without injury be Judged and Deposed by the Church For he is not fit to receive the Sacrament of Baptism who is not disposed to serve Christ and lose all he has for his sake according to S. Luke 14. If any one comes to me and hates not Father and Mother c. he cannot be my Disciple And the Church would err too grievously if She admitted a King who without Controul would cherish Heresie and overthrow Religion C. 24. Thus Argues Bellarmin in Rom. Pont. But against Barklay more largely Let us imagine saies he an Infidel Prince desirous to be receiv'd into the Church should speak in this manner I desire to become a fellow Citizen with the Saints by Baptism and promiss to submit my Scepter to Christ and defend his Church to my power and never to break my holy purpose Nevertheless If I happen to break my Word and become an Heretic or Apostate or Pagan I will not be punisht with Temporal Punishments either by the Church or its President or any but Christ and if the Chief Governour of the Church separate me from the Communion of the Faithful I will nevertheless that the Faithful Sons of the Church continue Faithful Subjects to me and may not be absolved from the bond of their Obedience by any Such a King saies he if Barklay think fit for Baptism wise men would laugh at him For if a man should desire to be incorporated into any City and should protest that if he had a mind to betray that City he would not be judged by the Magistrates of it but by the King who dwells far off every body would laugh at him And truly He that according to the Gospel ought be prepar'd to lose his life for the Faith of Christ ought more to be