Selected quad for the lemma: prince_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prince_n	law_n	power_n	sovereign_a	3,887	5	9.6410	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59122	Remarks upon the Reflections of the author of Popery misrepresented, &c. on his answerer, particularly as to the deposing doctrine in a letter to the author of the Reflections, together with some few animadversions on the same author's Vindication of his Reflections.	Seller, Abednego, 1646?-1705.	1686 (1686)	Wing S2461; ESTC R10424	42,896	75

Clergy which is equivalent to an act of our Convocation for the agreement will not hold because the dispute is not between the English and the French Church but between the Church of England and the Roman-Catholick Church in this point now we averr that the whole Church of England damns and disowns the Doctrine of Deposing but you tell us that only a part of your Catholick Church doth so too whereas a far greater part own and defend it we assert that it is Heresie to own the Doctrine but you dare not give it that name lest you offend his Holiness Nay it is plain from experience that so far are the Pope and the great men of your Church from condemning the Deposing Doctrine that those few men among you that have been so just and stout as to assert the rights of Princes have fallen under the Church Censures of which I need quote no more instances than Widdrington of old and F. Barnes if he be yet alive and F. Welsh at this present Excommunicate for affirming it to be the Duty of Subjects to Swear Allegiance to their Prince and to defend him even against the Pope himself and all his Censures whereas we daily see the assertors of the Deposing Doctrine not only live and dye in your Communion without Censure but to be the most thriving men and the soonest preferr'd to dignities So very true is that saying of * Ostens err Suares c. 3. n. 1. p. 918. ad cali to 2. de rep Eccl. Marcus Aut. de Dominis Archbishop of Spalato that the Pope and his followers are not pleased with any thing so much as with the rendring the power of Kings vile weak and contemptible to which I will add and the exposing all who defend it And to convince you that you your self have not that venerable Opinion of the Majesty of Princes and the Duty which their Subjects owe them as you ought I cannot but observe that you not only tell us * Pap. repres p. 50. that it is a disputed point among your Doctors as if it were one of those School-points which you mention p. 72. which may be maintain'd this way or that way without any breach of Faith or injury to Religion but withal that whereas upon every other head of Doctrine or Discipline that you represent you are frequent in quotations out of holy Scripture to prove your assertions how pertinently applyed your Adversary hath consider'd upon this head of the deposing power as also when you treat of it more largely than of any other thing in your * Sect. 2. § 4. p. 3. Roman Catholick principles if that Book be yours you quote not one text against Rebellion you confess that Rebellion against a Prince is contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Nation injurious to Soveraign power destructive to peace and Government and by consequence in his Majesties Subjects impious and damnable where I shall not take notice of your limitation of the proposition to his Majesties Subjects which hath no relation at all to the question whether the Subjects of an Heretical Prince as you account him may not take up Arms against him but why do not you speak out and say it is directly impious and damnable if you will not say it is Heretical being against an express Law of God that binds you to obey even a Nero or a Dioclesian * Rom. 13.5 not only for wrath but for conscience sake that tells you that † 1 Sam. 26.9 no man upon any pretence whatsoever can lift up his hand against the Lords anointed and be guiltless For by your way of arguing if the Fundamental Laws of a Nation may be secured by such a Rebellion and you know the pretence of all Rebels is Liberty and Property and the Government duly setled peace promoted and the Soveraign power i. e. the Monarchy not injured though a particular Monarch may be and yet your Deposing Divines say that it is no injury to an Heretical Prince to depose him but a just Execution of the Laws then a Rebellion may be lawful But upon the principles of the Church of England if all these things could be secured yet no man can be a Rebel but he must be damn'd because the Laws of God forbid Rebellion taking up Arms against a Prince or endeavouring to depose him for as long as the word of God stands firm and the above-cited texts with many others are not blotted out of our Bibles we think it directly damnable and not only by consequence as you do to take Arms against our Soveraign let his Religion be what it will So that upon the whole I cannot but ask you while you have endeavoured to prove Purgatory Invocation of Saints c. from both Scripture and Fathers how happens it that in the defence of the Rights of Princes you quote neither especially when you cannot but remember that the Assertors of the Pope's Temporal Monarchy and his power over Princes are frequent in their doughty arguments from holy Scripture such as God made two great Lights behold here are two Swords Feed my sheep rise Peter kill and eat c. and is there no place to be found in all the sacred Oracles that forbids Rebellion and requires Obedience does not that inspired Book injoyn all Christians * Mat. 22.21 to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar 's and † 1 Pet. 2.13 to submit to every ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake and if you are a Priest are you not requir'd to teach others so to do * Titus 3.1 to put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers to obey Magistrates and to be ready to every good work Is there also nothing in the Fathers that looks this way doth not Tertullian say that a Prince is inferiour only to God doth not Irenaeus aver that by the same power that men are made are Princes constituted Doth not Origen tell Celsus that among the Christians he should not find any act of sedition or tumult notwithstanding all their pressures and persecutions and doth not St. Ambrose say to the Emperor we intreat thee O Prince we do not fight not to multiply quotations And before I leave this head I cannot but remark that whereas the * Part. 3. praecep 4. § 11. Trent Catechism allows that Emperors and Magistrates are called Fathers and so are included in the Commandment Honour thy Father c. which is more than you acknowledge yet they quote no place of Scripture to make this good but the History of Naaman sic Naaman à famulis pater vocabatur where his Servants call him Father which does not look like fair dealing for the Example does not reach the Doctrine unless the Fathers of that Council praevaricate Naaman being a Subject to the King of Syria whereas they might have found without much seeking that * 1 Sam. 24.11 David calls Saul my Father who was his King and in

Christendom did allow of Henry the Eighth's Divorce from his first Wife which the Pope and perhaps you would not allow to be lawful but withal the two most famous Vniversities of England which to us are equivalent to all those in France and the most famous Monasteries of the Kingdom when this Question was propos'd to them An aliquid Autoritatis in hoc regno Angliae Pont. Romano de jure competat plusquam alii cuicunque Episcopo extero Whether the Pope had any lawful power in this Kingdom more than any other forreign Prelate The Answer was generally return'd in the Negative Besides who knows not that the generality of men speak as their hopes of Preferment lead them and that there was a great truth in that Observation of Aeneas Sylvius That many men wrote in vindication of the Pope's Authority and few for the Authority of a Council because a Council gave no Dignities nor Benefices but the Pope did And I should be glad to see the present French Clergy deal with the present Pope when he meddles out of his Sphere with the Crowns of Princes as their Predecessors did with Gregory the Fourth who under the pretext of being a Mediator between the Emperour Lewis the Debonaire and his Sons promoted the Rebellion and was suspected to come with a designe to excommunicate the Emperour and his Bishops for they protested † Ant. Anon vit Ludovici Pii Si excommunicaturus ad veniret excommunicatus abiret i. e. That if the Pope came to excommunicate them they would excommunicate him for acting contrary to the Authority of the ancient Canons And at last we have Advice given us * Nouvel de la rep de Lettres An. 1685. p. 716 c. That June 26. An. 1683. at Clermont in Auvergne the Jesuits publickly maintain'd four Theses in opposition to the decision of the French Clergy An. 1682. 1. That although they call their Theses Explanations of the Doctrine of the Gallican Church the first Article of the Decree did not diminish the special Authority of the Church over Kings and Princes Christian 2. That the second Article was not intended to weaken the Monarchick Primacy of the Pope over the Church 3. That by the third Article they intended not to take from the Pope the Soveraign Power of dispensing with Canons c. 4. That by the fourth Article they intended not to deprive the Pope of all Infallibility in matters of Faith Which Theses as far as I know yet pass uncensured And the Jansenist who goes under the name of René Clerc Tonsuré à l'Archevesque de Paris in his System of the Theology of the Gallican Church extracted from their Memoires proves that the French Bishops are not such Friends to Crowned heads as they would appear to be and that they take the Power from the Pope onely to place it in themselves affirming That the French King cannot be judged by a Council except the French Bishops be there implying that then he may be judged as if the last resort were to them and that the Declarations of the Pope against their King ought not to be obeyed till the Kingdom consent thereunto so that if the Kingdom consent the Deposition is lawful with other such Positions And the same Author affirms That whereas some English Gentlemen Decemb. 1. An. 1679. addressing themselves to some Doctors of the Sorbon had inclined them to decide for the lawfulness of our Oath of Allegiance the Archbishop of Paris sent to them that it was the King's pleasure they should not decide it which makes it plain that the Allegiance of the French Church is founded on the Catholick Religion and that an Heretical Prince hath not the same Right with the most Christian And though since that time † V. Caus Valesian append 6. the Sorbon An. 1686. hath given its approbation of the Oath of Allegiance with the word Heretical in it yet this is onely an honest acknowledgement of the Rights of Princes by one Colledge of learned men while in the same year the Jesuits at Gaunt in their Provincial Congregation expresly condemn'd the taking of the said Oath And who knows but the Sorbonists of the next Age may do as their Predecessors of the last did in the time of the League contradict all that hath lately been asserted Nor does the Condemnation signifie any thing in your sence since even a General Council cannot define any thing to be heretical unless it be de fide and the belief required under the penalty of an Anathema and when all this is done if the matter be of Discipline or Government you profess you may safely refuse to obey the Council To which Observation I will adde one Remark more That though Monsieur * Apologie pour là Clergie Arnald hath written in vindication of the French Church that they never owned the Deposing Doctrine yet if he be the Author of the Jesuits Morals for though Monsieur Paschal his Nephew have the honour of the Book yet all men be lieve that Arnald had a great hand in the contriving it he hath not dealt so ingenuously in this case as he might for when he quotes so many Passages out of the Moralists of the Society what liberty they give to violate Sacraments or Oaths to Lye and Equivocate and to break all Trusts Vows and Promises he never so much as touches on the many palpable Propositions in their Books which encourage and allow of the breach of Allegiance to Princes I have little more to subjoyn but this That whereas you appeal to the Council of Trent for the Faith of your Church I have observed in that Council some things how cunningly soever the Decrees were contrived and how warily soever they were penn'd which seem not to accord so well with your Catholick Principles For instance 1. † Sess 22. de Sacrif miss can 6. The Council says Si quis dixerit c. If any man shall say that the Canon of the Mass contains any Errours in it let him be Anathema And in another place * cap. 4. the Mass is said to be free from all Errour Now if it be so I suppose some of your Doctrines must fall to the ground being confuted by your Mass As 1. The Doctrine of Transubstantiation for after the Consecration the Priest calls the Sacrament Bread and Wine Offerimus panem sanctem vitae aeternae calicem salutis perpetuae And afterward desires God to look down upon it as he did on the Sacrifices of Abel Abraham and Melchizedeck And prays That those things might be carried by the hands of the holy Angels of God into Heaven For how are these Expressions suited to Christ's Corporeal Presence 2. All the Prayers of the Mass relate to a Communion and so are a consutation of private Mass and yet the Priest in a private Mass when no one but himself receives says Vt quotquot ex hâc altaris c. That as many of us