another as derived from Christ and his Apostles must be received with the same Veneration and Obedience that we pay to the Holy Scriptures And for the ways of distinguishing a Tradition of the Church from any Imposture or Novelty There be four of them The first That is the most doubtful is That the greatest and most esteemed Doctors in any Age deliver as a Divine Truth Nor is it necessary that they formally say This is a Tradition but if many of them mention an Opinion and declare their own assent to it this passes as a sufficient proof of the Tradition of any Age of the Church So in all points of Controversie between them and us the greatest part of their Writers some few later and suspected ones only excepted think they have sufficiently justified their Church when they bring Testimonies out of any of the Writings of the Fathers that seem to favour their Opinion and will call it unreasonable for us to reject these because they only deliver their own opinion and do not call it the Tradition of the Church but conclude That many Writers in any age asserting an Opinion it may well be looked on as the Tradition of that Age. But because this is more liable to exception there is another way that is more infallible to judg of Tradition and that is by the conveyance of the See of Rome which they judg the chief Depository of the Faith and for which they fansie they have so many proofs from the high things some of the Fathers have said about the dignity of that See Now if these conclude any thing it must follow That whatever has been delivered in any Age by a Pope as conveyed down from Christ or his Apostles must either be so indeed or the See of Rome is not a faithful Transmitter of Tradition But there is yet a more certain way of judging of Tradition by what the chief Pastors of the Church have delivered when assembled in a general Council This being the Supreme Tribunal in the Church there can lie no appeal from it Nor can the Doctrines delivered or approved by it be questioned For instance If it were under debate How the Tradition about Transubstantiation can be made out in the Thirteenth Century it is needless to seek any other evidence than That one Almerick is condemned for denying it and in Opposition to that it was formally established in a general Council This is as much as can be had and he were very unreasonable that were not satisfied with it So if it be asked How can the Tradition of the Doctrine of Deposing Kings and giving away their Dominions in the same Century be proved The Answer is plain That same very Council decreed it Upon which a great Prince was deposed and his Dominions were given to another These are the Common Standards by which Traditions are Examined But to these a new one has been lately added which is indeed a much shorter and nearer way And that is whatever the Church holds in any one age as a Material point of Religion she must have received it from the former age and that age from the former and so it climbs upwards till the days of the Apostles If this be a certain Track of Tradition by which we may infallibly trace it Then for instance If in any one age it hath been believed That St. Peter had power from Christ which he left to the See of Rome by which his Successor in it can depose Kings then this must be an Apostolical Tradition and by consequence of equal authority with any thing written in the Scriptures To these General Considerations about the Authority of the Church and the Certainty of Tradition I shall add Two other about the Nature of Supreme and Soveraign Power By which we may judg of what Extent the Popes Power must be if he have an authority to depose Kings and transfer their Dominions to other persons First When the Soveraign Powers proceed in a Legal way against its Subjects If either they abscond so that they cannot be found Or have such a Power about them that the Sovereign cannot bring them to punishment He may declare them Rebels and set Prices on their Heads And in that case it is as lawful for any Subject to kill them as it is for an Executioner to put a condemned Person to Death These being the several ways the Law provides in those several cases So when a Pope deposes a Prince He may as lawfully set on private Assassinates to kill him as oblige his Subjects to rise with open force against him For if the Pope has a Power over him to depose him this clearly follows from the Nature of Sovereign Power and it is the Course that sometimes must be followed when the Rebel can be no other way brought to deserved punishment and if the Pope has the power of deposing then a Prince who after such a Sentence carries himself as a King is a Rebel against his Supreme Lord And is also an Usurper For his Title being destroyed by the Sentence He has no authority over his Subjects and therefore may be as lawfully killed as any Rebel or Usurper Secondly The Supreme power may in cases of great necessity when the thing is in it self materially just pass over such Forms as ought in ordinary Cases to be observed I need not tell you That in a great Fire Subordinate Magistrates may blow up Houses But doubtless the Supreme Power of all as a King in an absolute Monarchy and such is the Papal Power if these Opinions be true may dispence with some Forms when the Matter is in it self just and if the chief design of a Law be pursued the circumstantial parts of it may upon extraordinary occasions be superseded Therefore if the Pope is Supreme over all Kings and has this deposing Power Then though by the Canon a King ought to be first a Year Excommunicated for his Heresy or favouring Hereticks and at the Years end he may be Deposed by the Pope There are also other Rules for Excommunications tho the Summary way in some cases may be used yet all these are but circumstantial and lesser Matters The design of that Law is That no Heretical Prince or favourer of Heresie be continued in his Power The other are but Forms of Law that cannot be indispensibly necessary in all cases Besides the very Canon Law teaches that when there is both a Notorietas juris Facti Summary proceedings are Legal when then it is Notorious that the Doctrines of the Church of England for Instance are Heretical and that the King is an Obstinate Favourer of these Heresies and will not extirpate them Summary and Secret proceedings are justifiable There is no hope that Bulls Breves or Citations would do any good in this case These would on the contrary alarm the State and bring all the Party under great hazards Therefore from the Nature of Supreme Power it is most justly Inferred That
to the Pope That he from thenceforth may pronounce his Subjects discharged from their Obedience and expose his Territory to be seized on by Catholicks who having exterminated the Hereticks shall possess it withont contradiction and preserve it in the purity of the Faieh so as no injury be done to the Right of the Supreme Lord where there is such provided he do not any way oppose himself and the same Law is to take place on them who have no Superiour Lord. The Deposition of the Court of Tholouse being the thing then in their eye made that the Decree runs chiefly against Feudatary Princes yet as the last Clause takes in Soveraign Princes so by the Clause before it was provided That if the Soveraign did any way Oppose what was done against his Vassal he was to forfeit his Right I did in the former part of this Letter meet with all the Exceptions that are commonly made to this Canon Only one pretty Answer which a person of Honour makes is yet to be considered He tells us that there were so many Soveraign Princes or Ambassadors from them at this Council that we are to look on this Decree as a thing to which those Princes consented From whence he Infers It was rather their Act than an Invasion of their Rights made by that Council But be it so he knows they allow no Prescription against the Church If then those Princes consented to it upon which the power of Deposing had that Accession to fortifie it by it can never be recalled nor prescribed against It is true there were many Ambassadors from Princes there But they were all such as either held their Dominions by the Popes Grant or had been either Deposed by him or Threatned with Depositions or were the Children of those whom he had Deposed So no wonder they stood in such fear of the Pope that they durst not refuse to consent to every thing he had a mind to For indeed this Council did only give their Placet to a paper of Decrees penned by the Pope Henry called the Greek Emperor Brother to Baldwin that had seized on Constantinople had no other Title to it besides the Popes Gift Frederick the 2d who had been the Popes Ward was then the Elect Emperor of Germany made so at the Popes Instance who had Deposed the two Immediately preceding Emperours Philip and Otho the 4th the last being at that time alive So that he durst not contradict the Pope lest he should have set up Otho against him But no Emperor except Henry the 4th ever suffered more from the Popes Tyranny than he did afterwards One sad Instance of it was that the Pope having pressed his March to the Holy-land much did at last Excommunicate him for his delays upon which he to avoid further censures carried an Army thither which was so succesful that the Pope who hoped he should have been destroyed in the Expedition as the first Emperor of that name was now being vexed at his Success complained that he should have presumed to go thither while he lay under Excommunication and was in Rebellion against him and went about not only to Dethrone him but to get him to be betrayed by the Knights Hospitallers and Templers into the Sultans hands who abominating that Treachery revealed it to him John of Brenne had the Kingdom of Jerusalem by that same Popes Gift who took it from Almeric King of Cyprus and gave it him But Almeric had no cause to complain since he held Cyprus only by the same Copy of the Popes Gift So they both were at the Popes Mercy Our John of England was his Vassal as he usually called him But his Successour went higher calling the King of England not only his Vassal but his Slave and Declared That at his beck he could procure him to be Imprisoned and Disgraced James King of Arragon who was also the Popes Ward had no less reason to be afraid of the Pope who had Deposed his Father for Assisting the Count of Tholouse Philip Augustus King of France had his Kingdom twice put under an Interdict worse things being also threatned The like Threatnings had been made to Andrew King of Hungary but upon his Submission he was received into favour And now is it any wonder that those Princes gave way to such a Decree when they knew not how to help themselves by Opposing it which would have raised a Storm that they could not hope to weather Anothet thing is remarkable concerning this time by which the Belief of the Deposing Doctrine in that Age will better appear Other Princes whom Popes had Deposed procured some Civilians to write for them and got Synods of Bishops sometimes on their side against the Pope Because it was evident the Pope proceeded not upon the Account of Heresie but of private spite and hatred But in the case of the Count of Tholouse who was a manifest Favourer of that which was esteemed Heresie the Opinions of the Albigenses that were his Subjects not a Writer in all that Age durst undertake to defend his cause nor could he procure one Bishop to be of his side So universally was it received that in the case of Heresie a Prince might be Deposed by the Pope The 3d General Council that Confirmed this Power was the Council of Lions held by Innocent the 4th against the forementioned Frederick the 2d where as the Sentence bears The Pope having Consulted with his Brethren and the Holy Council being Christs Vicar on Earth to whom it was said in the person of St. Peter whatsoever ye bind on Earth c. Declares the Emperor bound in his sins and thereupâ—n Deprived by God of his Dominions Whereupon he by his Sentence does Depose him and absolves all from their Oaths of Fidellty to him Straitly charging all persons to acknowledge him no more either Emperor or King Declaring all that did otherwise Excommunicated ipso facto There are in this Process several things very remarkable It is grounded on a pretence to a Divine Tradition So here the whole Council concur with the Pope in asserting this power to flow from that Conveyance And thus either that Tradition is true or the Councils are not to be believed when they Declare a Tradition 2ly Tho this is but a Decree in one particular Instance yet it is founded on the General Rule And so is a Confirmation of it by which it is put out of doubt that the 4th Council of Later an included Soveraign Prinâ—es within their Decree 3ly When the Emperors Advocate appeared to plead for him He did not at all except to their Jurisdiction over him or Power of Deposing in the case of Heresie but denyed that the Emperor was guilty of the crimes Objected namely Heresie whereby he at least waved the denial of their Power in that case He also desired some time might be granted for the Emperor to appear and plead for himself in person Whereby he plainly acknowledged their
Church for several Ages and by consequence it must be looked on as derived down from the Apostles If the Doctrine of any one Age of the Church can lead us backward in a certain Track to discover what it was in the Apostles days By the first Position about the Nature of Supreme Power it is apparent that in the Case of Heresy a Prince deposed by the Pope if he stands out against the Sentence may be as lawfully killed as any Tory or Moss-Trooper or Bantito may be for he is a Rebel against his Lord and an Usurper over the People from that day forward And therefore tho Mariana told a Secret too publickly yet it cannot be denied to be a certain Consequent of their Principles It had been indeed more discreetly done to have ordered this only to be infused unto Peoples Consciences by their Confessors in secret And for Mariana tho the Book in gross is condemned as they give out yet the Opinions set down in it are not censured But Suarez writing against K. James tells him in plain Terms That a King who is canonically deposed may be killed by any man whatsoever This was not only published with an ordinary License but the whole University of Alcala declared every thing in it to be according to the Doctrine of the Church Valentia tho he disguises it a little yet says That an Heretical Prince may by the Popes Sentence be deprived of his Life Foulis cites ten more Doctors for the same Opinion of killing Kings by private persons I do not build upon the Assertions of these Jesuits as binding Authorities in that Church but make use of them to shew that some of their own eminentest Writers acknowledg the force of this Consequence which is indeed so evident that nothing but good Manners and some small Care not to provoke Princes too much by such bare-faced Positions keeps others from asserting it Few Princes are so tame as Childeric was to go into a Monastery after they are deposed Therefore this Doctrine is but a lame provision for the Churches Security from Heresie if the Lawfulness of killing does not follow that of deposing Kings And it was so generally received that it is told of Gerson that he was at great pains to get it declared that no private Cut-throat might kill a King and that by consequence it was only the Popes Prerogative to order them to be destroyed By the second Position about the Nature of Supreme Power that in extraordinary Cases Forms of Law may be superseded It is also clear that tho we know nothing of any Sentence of Deposition given out against the King yet he is not a whit the safer for he lies under an yearly Curse every Maundy Thursday The Notoriousness of his Heresy will sufficiently justify a particular Sentence without any further Process or Citation according to the Maxims of the Canon Law And there may be for ought we can know as valid a Deposition as Parchment and Lead can make it already expeded And if it be not yet done we are sure it may be done very suddenly and will be done whensoever they see any probability of Success Bellarmine hath very sincerely told us the Reason why Heretical Princes are not deposed because the Church has not strength enough to make such a Sentence good or does not think it expedient that is to say They will do it whensoever they find a Prince who will execute the Sentence and yet by that Conquest not grow so strong as by that means to turn the Ballance So the two Considerations to which we owe our Security are the want of Force and the Fear of another Prince his becoming too powerful by the Conquest But I must add that Bellarmine while he was a Jesuite had taught that Heretical Princes were not to be deposed except they endeavoured to turn their people from the Faith This was all his Bounty to them of which we could not pretend to a Crumb since there were such Laws made against Popery among us Yet when he became a Cardinal he considered better of the Matter so that in his Recognitions he retracts that and says therein be followed Durandus his Opinion who maintains it against Aquinas but he thinks the latter was in the right and says Even in that Case they may be deposed only the Church does it not always either because she wants Strength or does not judge it expedient But he concludes If Princes endeavour to draw their Subjects from the Faith they may and ought to be deposed So in our Case there is no Mercy to be expected unless we repeal all Laws against that Religion But after all this there is another Device in the canon-Canon-Law called Ipso facto by which a Sentence is incurred immediately upon the doing of a Fact This began in the Priviledges granted to Monasteries or Churches in most of which this Clause is to be found That if any King or Prince c. did any thing contrary to these Priviledges he thereby fell from his Power and Dignity Now that Heresy is one of the things upon which a Prince is ipso facto under Excommunication and Deposition we have the Authority of Father Parsons or Creswel who tells us That the whole School of Divines and Canonists agree in it and That it is certain and of Faith That a Prince falling from the Catholick Religion and endeavouring to draw away others from it does immediately fall from all his Power and Dignity even before the Pope has pronounced any Sentence and that his Subjects are free from their Oaths of Obedience and may eject such an one as Apostate and Heretick But there is a clearer Evidence for this the great and famous College of the Sorbon seventy Doctors being present when consulted whether the People of France were not freed from their Obedience to Henry the third upon his putting the Duke and Cardinal of Guise to death they before ever the Pope had given Sentence declared That they were absolved from their Obedience and might with a good Conscience make War upon him for the defence of the Catholick Faith Upon which the Parisians wrote to the Pope to desire the Confirmation of that Decision From all which it appears that if the deposing Power be in the Pope the King is not a whit the safer because we know nothing of any such Sentence pronounced against him And thus having made good and illustrated the Positions I laid down against all the Exceptions which that small and condemned Party of Widdrington's Followers make use of to cover themselves from the Charge of Treason that lies against their Church I go next to lay open the Evidence after which I shall leave it to every Man's Conscience to pass the Verdict There are in Pope Gregory the Great 's Works four Priviledges granted one to the Abbey of St. Medard another to the Hospital a third to the Nunnery a fourth to St. Martin's
him and cried out with a loud voice I am Pope and Emperor and have both the Earthly and Heavenly Empire This upon so publick an occasion looks very like the Teaching the Church Ex Cathedra But because words vanished into Air he left it in writing in these terms We say and define and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary to Salvation for every humane creature to be subject to the Bishop of Rome This being put into the Text of the Canon Law in which it is continued to this day we cannot think it Strange that Panorimitan Ostiensis Silvester with all the other Canonists assert the Popes direct Dominion over all the World And what can they say less Believing him to be Christs Vicar on Earth to whom all Power in heaven and earth was given of his Father therefore the power in Heaven being judged enough for Christ to manage himself they thought all the power in Earth was Committed to the Vicar This passed down without Contradiction among them but was not received by the rest of the Church yet the Indirect or as they termed it the Ecclesiastical power in cases of Heresie was Universally agreed to not one person Opposing it till Luther and his Followers came sawcily to look into the Popes Title to this and many other pretended Rights of the See of Rome But because the Plea for an Indirect Power was not Sufficient Since if a Prince did not Favour Heresie it was of no use And the pretention to a direct power was of an harsh sound Therefore a Title of another kind was set up It was pretended That all the Kingdoms in the Western and Northern parts of Europe were by formal Surrenders offered up to St. Peter and St. Paul And therefore whatever the Popes did was said to be done in Defence of their Rights which made Gregory the 7th fly to them in that flanting Address with which he begins his Sentences against the Emperor First of all the Donation of Constantine the Great was forged By which the Power of all the West Italy Sicily Sardinia Germany France Spain and England were given to the Pope This was put into the Text of the Canon Law and was stood to by all the Canonists It is true the Civilians wrote generally against it Among whom Bartholus may be reckoned for in his Preface to the Digests having mentioned the Opinions of some against it when it comes to his own he delivers it thus Take notice that we are now in the Territory of the Church for he taught at Bulloigne and therefore I say that Donation is valid But till Valla discovered the Impostures of it so manifestly that they are now ashamed to maintain it any longer their plea from it was never laid down But Augustinus Steuchus who undertakes the Vindication of that Donation against Valla does likewise alledge from some Instruments in the Vatican that both the Kingdoms of Spain Arragon France England Denmark Muscovy Sicily and Croatia and Dalmatia did Subject their Crowns to the See of Rome Krantzius tells us that Lakold King of Poland made it Tributary to Rome And for the German Empire tho Steuchus says nothing of it perhaps that he might not offend Charles the 5th yet there is both in the Canon Law and the Letters of Popes more to be said upon that Head than for any of the rest They pretend the Popes set up first the Empire of the West Then gave the Princes of Germany the Right of choosing the Emperor and does still give the Imperial Crown upon the Emperors Swearing an Oath of Homage to them according to the verse under that Insolent Picture set up by Pope Innocent the 2d In the Lateram of the Emperor lying prostrate at his feet and receiving the Crown from him Post homo fit Papae sumit quo dante Coronam But all these Surrenders were made use of only to strengthen the great pretention they had of being Christs Vicars and St. Peters Successours which from the end of the 11th Century till the beginning of the 16th for above 4 Ages together was as Authoritatively asserted by Popes as positively taught by Divines and as tamely received by the whole Church Emperors and Kings not presuming to contradict it as any other Article of Faith And for proofs of this we need appeal to no other witnesses than those 3. great Cardinals Baronius Bellarmin and Perron who may be presumed to have understood the Doctrine of their own Church better than any body else The First of those through his whole work strains his Industry to discover as many Instances as he can of it and never parts with any without expressing the particular satisfaction he had in so pleasant a Discovery I shall only set down what he says on the two 1st occasions that he met with When he takes notice of Gregory the Great 's priviledges formerly mentioned he adds You see Reader That the Popes can make Laws to which if Kings themselves do not yield Obedience they shall lose their Kingdoms Upon the first Deposition mâ—de by Gregory the 3d. He adds The Faithful in the West being awakened by this Thunder do immediately fall from the Obedience to Leo adhering to this Apostolical Pope So this Gregory left a worthy Precedent to Posterity that Heretical Princes be not suffered to reign in the Church of Christ if having been often admonished they continue to persist obstinately in their Errors Such strains as these do so often occur afterwards that they can scarce be reckoned It is well known what advice he gave P. Paul the 5th in the quarrel with the Venetians applying the voice to St. Peter Arise and Kill to the case in hand and that with his Insolent Paraenesis to that Republick are clear Evidences of his sence in this matter What Bellarmin taught more shortly and obscurely in his Controversies was afterwards made more plain both by his Writings about the Translation of the Roman Empire upon the Interdict of Venice and against King James and William Barklay And Cardinal Perrons Eloquent speech against the Bill put in by the Third Estate of France for Condemning those pretensions of a Deposing Power shews us not only his own sense but the sense of the whole Clergy of France in whose name he delivered it He calls the Contrary Opinion a Doctrine that breeds Schisms a Gate that leads unto all Heresie and so detestable that he and his Fellow Bishops will choose to burn at a Stake rather than consent to it He affirming That all the parts of the Catholick Church and of the Church of France in particular and all the Schools of Divinity till the coming of Calvin held the affirmative and says That no where in France since the Divinity Schools were set up can they find any one Doctor Divine or Lawyer any Decree Council or Sentence of Parliament or any one Magistrate Ecclesiastick or Politick who had held that in case of Heresie or