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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	humane_a	law_n	positive_a	2,470	5	10.9031	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A68730	Certain general reasons, prouing the lawfulnesse of the Oath of allegiance, written by R.S. priest, to his priuat friend. Whereunto is added, the treatise of that learned man, M. William Barclay, concerning the temporall power of the pope. And with these is ioyned the sermon of M. Theophilus Higgons, preached at Pauls Crosse the third of March last, because it containeth something of like argument	Sheldon, Richard, d. 1642?; Barclay, William, 1546 or 7-1608. De potestate Papæ. English.; Higgons, Theophilus, 1578?-1659. Sermon preached at Pauls Crosse the third of March, 1610.; Barclay, John, 1582-1621.	1611 (1611)	STC 22393; ESTC S117169	172,839	246

preach and doth both propound and expound the will of God comprehended in the old and new law Of which precepts almost infinit his Epistles are full wherein are these also which he deliuers touching obedience and reuerence to be giuen to Kings and Princes And the other kind is of those things which doe not depend of the law of nature or the expresse word of God but which the Apostle himselfe of his proper authority ordaineth by humane wisedome assisted by the grace of God for the ordering and setling of the worship of God as that a Bigamus or a quarreller be not admitted to a Bishopricke that a widow vnder the age of 60. yeeres be not chosen to the office of Deaconesse and the like And between these commandements the difference is that in those which be of the latter kind the Pope may dispense for some cause For he hath no lesse authority then the Apostle himselfe in the disposition and ordination of the Church because the whole Church is committed to him as to the Vicar of Christ and successor of Peter and because he is not bound to the lawes of his predecessors But in those matters which belong to the former kind he hath no power at all to dispense because Non est discipulus ●per Magistrum neque seruus supra Dominum The inferior may not breake the law of his superior or qualifie the same to pleasure any For which cause Speculator doth affirme that the Pope can not absolue any man from a lawfull oath because the obligation of keeping an oath and performing it to God is both by the law of nature and of God And others deny that the Pope can dispense with any witnesse that he may be beleeued vnsworne in a iudgement And Innocentius III. Pope in his rescript witnesseth that the Pope can not grant licence to a Monke that either he may haue the property of any goods or haue a wife I am not ignorant with what a far fetcht and trifling explication certaine Canonists interpreters who submit all things to the power of the Pope doe bend and wrest from the proper and natiue signification of the words that same place of Innocentius against the iudgement of the best sort of diuines I am perswaded that it troubled them which they had hearde that Constantia the daughter of Rogerius Normannus a Nunne was by Clement the III. brought out of the Monastery of Panormus to be maried to Henry the VI. sonne of Frederike Aenobarbus of whom the Archbishop of ●lorence writeth that when she was fifty yeeres of age and had long professed a Monasticall religion that she bare Frederike the II. And that she might take away all suspition of a supposite and foisted birth that she was openly deliuered in the midle of a street in Panormus vnder a sheet ouer spread proclamation being made before that it should be lawfull for all women to be present who would come to see that spectacle Therefore this Frederike was borne saith he of a Nunne that was now fifty yeeres of age and because they had heard also that an other Pope had granted a certaine King of Aragon an indulgence that of a Monke he might bee a maried man Wherefore these men I meane the Canonists being beyond all measure addicted to the Popes being loath to reprehend such manner of actions least they should doe disgrace to their Popes who were greedy of honor and knowing that the words of the prescript set foorth by Innocent the III. did affirme the contrary they laboured to helpe themselues by such foolish interpretations as it irketh me to report in this place least I should intertaine the reader with toies But it had been much easier for them to maintaine the truth and the equity of the rescript then to practise to make a certaine law of the singular and vnlawfull actions of Popes as though they were a rule to liue by Let vs su●ter the Popes to giue accompt of their actions to God neither let vs imitate them in all things But if any doe propound to vs for examples such actions of theirs we will answer with Ioan de Tur. Crem Siluester Sotus and other learned men That these were deeds of Popes but not decrees and that the deeds of the Popes doe not make an article of the Christian saith and that it is one thing to commit any thing defacto mother thing to determine what might be done de●ure I my ●●e and Siluester haue seen a Pope doe greater matters with the canda●● of whole Christianity and Iohn de Tur. Crem speaking of vnlawfull dispensations saith which if it shall so be at any time done by any Pope being either ignorant in the Scriptures or blinded with desire of wealth and mony which is wont to be offered for such exorbitant dispensations or that he might please any man it doth not follow that he might iustly doe those things The Church is gouerned or ought to be gouerned by Right and Lawes not by such actions or Examples CHAP. XXVII THerefore it is the opinion of many learned men that the Pope cannot giue power to a religious Person to breake his vow that he may haue the property of any goods or a wife according to the true and simple sence of Innocentius his words And yet if we will diligently search and consider how much some things differ from other and with a right iudgement to compare them together in the points wherein they properly agree or differ there will because to confesse that the Pope hath far lesse power giuen him to absolue a People from the Religion-of their oath by which they haue willingly and frankely obleiged their faith to their Prince then to dissolue the vowes of religious Persons that although in this last point peraduenture in some mens opinion he may seeme to haue power to doe something deplenitudine potestatis yet in the other we must thinke that he is able to doe iust nothing Both for that the whole Order Monachall and other Orders in the Church as certaine thinke haue proceeded from humane Constitutions and the positiue law ouer whom in that consideration the Pope hath full and all manner of power that may be as we haue said a little before But the submission and obedience due to Kings and Princes and all Magistrates and superiours is grounded vpon the law of Nature and of God being confirmed by both the Testaments For although it be a matter of humane law and ordination to vse this or that forme of Common-wealth or Gouernment or to haue this or that Prince but to reuerence him whom we had once receiued and submisly to obey him in all things which are not contrary to Gods commandements it is a matter not onely of humane but also both of Naturall and Diuine institution And this I thinke no man will deny Quipotestati resistit Deiordination● resistit Whereby it commeth to passe that that which was free and arbitrary in the

reason before related by vs is by him propounded in these words A shepheard may shedde and shut vp the furious rammes which destroy the flocke But a Prince is a furious ramme destroying the flocke when he is in faith a Catholicke but so wicked as hee doth much hurt Religion and the Church as if he should sell Bishoprickes spoile Churches c. Ergo the Pastor of the Church may reclude him he should haue rather said exclude him for recludere is aperire or to reduce him into the rancke of the sheepe Surely wee doe admitte this argument and whatsoeuer beside is by necessary consecution inferred thereof now no other thing can be inferred but that it is lawfull for the Pastor of the Church by which name we vnderstand the Pope in this place to expell an euill Prince out of the Lords fold and to exclude him that he rest not in the Lords sheepe-cotes with the rest of the Christian flocke that is to say by Ecxommunication to cast him out of the Communion of the Church of the Saints and to depriue him of all the benefites of regeneration in Christ and to deliuer him to Satan vntill hee make lawfull satisfaction for his offence and contumacie And this punishment is wholy spirituall and ecclesiastick and the greatest of all other which the Church hath which he cannot goe beyond no not against a priuate person vnlesse it be to go to the Prince ciuill as being superiour to the offender and beseech him to punish the iniurie offered to the holy mother who for that shee is a nurse of the Church ought to chastice with corporall and ciuill punishments the offenders and rebels to the same But the Church wanteth this temporall aide when as he is the soueraigne Prince himselfe who commits that for which hee may be worthily excommunicate because he hath no superior by no law can be challenged to punishment being free and safe through the Maiestie of his gouernment Therefore although the Pastor of the Church or the Pope may by Excommunication exclude him from the flocke and so depriue him of all his spirituall benefites yet can hee take away from him none of those things which he possesseth and enioyeth by vertue of a temporall and humane interest because goods of that nature are not subiect to Ecclesiastique but to Politique lawes which are in the power of Kings And as no Christian whether Prince or priuate person can auoid the Popes iudgment in spirituall Causes so neither may any subiect of what ranke or place soeuer he be decline the iudgement of his King or Prince in temporall affaires for in that the causes of Clergie persons are committed to other then to ciuill Iudges that was granted them by the singular grace and priuiledge of Princes whereas by the common law Cleriques as wel as Laiques are subiect to the temporall authority of secular Princes And this is grounded on that reason which Bellarmine himselfe deliuers viz. That Clergie persons besides that they are Clergy persons are also Citizens and certain parts of the common wealth politique Hence it is that vnder the best and holiest Christian Princes all the causes of Clergy men as well ciuill as criminall so as they were not Ecclesiasticke were wont to bee debated before ciuill and temporall Magistrates Therefore the Clergy did owe to secular Princes this their liberty which in this point they enioy as we haue declared before in the 15. Chapter Whereby I maruaile that the same Bellarmine doth affirme that the Pope might simply by his owne authority exempt Clergy men by the Canon Law from the subiection of temporall Princes For that I may speake it with the reuerence of so great a man it is as false as false may be Because the law of Christ depriues no man of his right and interest but it should depriue if it should take away against their wils that temporall right and interest which Princes before they became Christians had ouer Clergie men Againe seeing the Pope himselfe hath obtained this exemption of his owne by no other right but by the bounty and grace of Princes For as the aduersaries confesse hee was both de iure and de facto subiect to heathen princes as other Citizens it is an absurd thing to say that he could deliuer others frō the same subiection Otherwise that might agree to him which the wicked blaspheming Iewes did vpbraid to our Sauiour Christ He hath saued others himselfe he could not saue And in this point the authority of the Fathers in Councels could not be greater then the Popes Therefore this place requireth that wee also conuince an other errour which hath sprung spread very wide out of the decrees of Counsels not diligently and aduisedly considered and which reacheth at this day I know not how farre and to what persons viz. That Councels haue freed Clergy men from the authoritie iurisdiction of Magistrates Which is as far from all truth as may be for it is no where found in any Councell that the Fathers assumed to them so much authority as to depriue secular Judges of their authority and iurisdiction ouer the Clergy or in any sort forbid them to heare and determine the causes of Clergy men being brought before them vnlesse it were after that by the singular bounty of Diuines which began from Iustintanus that priuiledge of Court was granted to Church men For when as these graue Fathers themselues which were present and presidents in Councels were subiect to temporal authority as Saint Augustine teacheth in expositione cap. 13. Epist. ad Rom. it could not bee that they should by their proper authority exempt themselues or others from that subiection Therefore wee must vnderstand that those ancient fathers of the church amongst whom the Ecclesiasticall discipline did flourish with much seuerity and sincerity which at this day is too much neglected vsed all the care and diligence that might bee that the Clergy should carry a light before the people not onely in doctrine but also in inte●rity of manners and innocency of life and for that cause that they admonished all Clergy men and decreed and enacted by the Canons of their councels that none of them should bring against another any ciuill or criminall complaint before a secular Iudge but that either they should compose all their controuersies among themselues by the arbitration of friends or if they would not or could not that at least they should end them by the iudgement of the Bishop And surely they ordered their matters in this manner out of the same or surely the very like aduice which S. Paul in the 1. Epistle to the Corinthians gaue the Christians forbiding them that they should not draw one an other before the iudgement seates of insidell Iudges and there contend about their differences which we spake of a little before I say out of the same aduice these fathers ordained that if any thing sell out among the Clergy after the