Soveraigns either for their Cruelty Heresy or Apostasie was ever taught in the Church of Christ by any of the ancient Fathers abovementioned during the Reigns of Dioclesian or Julian the Apostate or Valens the Arrian or of any other the Wicked Emperours before them or that it is not a wicked perverting of the Apostles words to the Corinthians touching their choice of Arbitrators to end dissentions amongst themselves rather than draw their Brethren before Iudges that were Infidels to infer thereof either that St. Paul intended thereby to impeach in any sort the Authority of the civil Magistrates as if he had meant they should have chosen such Iudges as by civil Authority might otherwise have bound them than by their own consents to have stood to their Award or to authorize Christian Subjects when they are able to thrust their lawful Soveraigns from their Regal Seats and to choose unto themselves new Kings into their places or that any of the said ancient Fathers or godly learned Men for many hundred years after Christ did ever so grosly and irreligiously expound the said place of the Apostle as our Cardinaliz'd Jesuit hath done or that it can be collected out of the Scriptures that either Christ or any of his Apostles did at any time teach or preach that they who meant to be Baptized must receive that Sacrament upon Condition that if at any time afterward they should not be obedient to St. Peter for his time and to his Successors they were to lose and be deprived of all their temporal Estates and Possessions or that it can be proved either out of the Scriptures or by any of the said ancient Fathers or shewed in any ancient Form of Administration of Baptism that ever there was any such Covenant made by any such faithful Persons when they were Baptized or required of them to be made by any that Baptized them or that if such a Covenant were by Christ's Ordinance to be made in Baptism it ought not as well to be made by Farmers by Gentlemen possessed of Mannours and by Lords of greater Revenues and Possessions as by Kings and Soveraign Princes or that it were not an absurd Imagination to think that Christ and his Apostles did only mean that Emperours Kings and Soveraign Princes should be received to Baptism upon the said Condition or that all Christian Men ought not to judge that the eleven Apostles if they had known of any such bargain or condition in Baptism would have dealt as faithfully with the Church and in the behalf of St. Peter in preaching and teaching the same as now our Cardinal and other such like Persons of the Roman strain do by their Writing Publishing and maintaining of it in the behalf of the Bishops of Rome or that either Christ or his Apostles knowing that Baptism ought to be received with such a Condition did think it convenient that the same should be concealed not only whilst they lived but for many hundred years afterward until the Bishops of Rome should be grown to such a head and strength as that they might without fear of any inconveniencies make the whole Christian World acquainted with it or that it is not an idle conceit for any Man to maintain that the Renunciation of the effects of Baptism doth deprive Men of their temporal Lands and Possessions which they did not hold by any force of Baptism or make them subject in that behalf to the deprivation of the Bishops of Rome or that Apostasy from Christ put on in Baptism doth any further extend it self than to the Souls of such Apostates in this Life in that the Devil hath got again the possession of them and so depriveth them in this World of all the comfort and hope they had in Christ leading them on to the bane both of their Bodies and Souls in the Life to come or that any Ecclesiastical Person hath any other lawful means to reclaim Wicked Heretical or Apostated Kings from their Impiety Heresy and Apostasy than Christ and his Apostles did ordain to be used for winning Men at the first to embrace the Gospel or that Christ himself while he lived did attempt either directly or indirectly to Depose the Emperour by whose Authority he was himself put to death as holding that the Church could not attain to her Spiritual End except he had so done or that by the death of Christ the Church did not attain to her Spiritual End without the Deposition of any Emperours or Kings from their Regal Estates or that ever the Apostles in their days either preached or writ that the Ecclesiastical Commonwealth could not be perfect except St. Peter for his time and after him the Bishops of Rome should have temporal Power and Authority to Depose Emperours and Kings that the Church might attain her Spiritual End or that the Church in their days did not attain to her Spiritual End although no such Authority was then either challenged or put in practice or that the Church could have attain'd to that her Spiritual End in the Apostle's times if the said temporal Power and Authority had been then necessary for the attaining of it or that our Saviour Christ and his Apostles did propound a Spiritual End unto his Church and left no other necessary means for the obtaining of it than such as could not be put in practice either in their days or for many hundred years after or that the Churches of Christ after the Apostle's times for the space of 300. years being wonderfully oppressed with sundry Persecutions did not attain to their Spiritual End without this dream'd off Temporal Authority of Deposing Kings and Emperours then their mortal Enemies not in respect of themselves but of the Doctrine of Salvation which they taught to their Subjects or that this new Doctrine of the Necessity that the Bishops of Rome should have temporal Authority either directly or indirectly to Depose Emperours and Kings for any cause whatsoever or that else the Church of Christ should not be able to attain to her Spiritual End was ever heard of for ought that appeareth for many hundreds of years after the Apostles times either in any Ecclesiastical History or in any of the ancient Fathers by us abovementioned or that the Bishops of Rome with all their Adherents whilst they would make the World believe that the Church of Christ cannot attain her Spiritual End except they have temporal Authority indirectly to Depose for some Causes Emperours Kings and Soveraign Princes are more learned now than either the ancient Fathers or the Apostles themselves were and that they know the sense of the Scriptures better than either they the said ancient Fathers did or the Apostles that writ them who for ought that was known for many hundred years never preached taught or intended to have any such Doctrine collected out of their Writings and Works or that it may without great Impiety be once imagined that if such a necessary point of Doctrine concerning the said
serve or as St. Luke hath Christ's words Ye shall not be so that is Ye shall not live as Kings upon the Earth nor have such worldly Estates as that thereby ye might have occasion to vaunt in the World what great Benefactors you have been in advancing your Followers to this or that Dukedom according as great Kings and Monarchs are accustomed to deal with their Servants and principal Subjects but let the greatest amongst you be as the least and the chiefest as he that serveth For who is greater he that sitteth at the table or he that serveth Is not he that sitteth at the table and I am among you as he that serveth By which words of our Saviour it is very manifest how far he was from challenging to himself any worldly Kingdom and how much his Apostles were deceived in apprehending what great Men they should become by being his Followers and Disciples To this purpose much more might be here alledged by us as also it would not be forgotten what we have before observed in the former Chapter tending to the same effect in as much as Christ having made himself subject to the Obedience of the Fifth Commandment which tied him as well to be a Subject unto the Emperour under whom he was born as to the obedience of his Parents did thereby shew himself to be no temporal Monarch Howbeit all this notwithstanding there are some so much addicted in these days unto the said erroneous opinion of the Jews as for the advancement of the glory of the Bishop of Rome they will needs have Christ to have been here upon the Earth a Temporal King Affirming that upon his Nativity all the Kings in the World lost their Regal Power and Authority all their Kingdoms being devolved unto him and that they could no longer possess them by any Right Interest or Title until they had again resum'd them from him as he was Man and forsaken their ancient Tenures whereby they had held them of him as he was God Insomuch as some of them say in effect that neither Augustus Caesar nor Tiberius his Successor were lawful Emperours from the time of Christ's Birth for above the space of thirty years until our Saviour had required the Jews to pay Tribute to Caesar as if in so doing Tiberius had again received thereby his former right to the Empire and that thereupon he was from that time forward to hold it of Christ as he was Man In which erroneous conceits these Men proceed further than ever the Jews or the Apostles in their weakness did For the Jews never imagin'd of their Messiah that when he came into the World he should abolish all civil Government amongst the Gentiles and be a temporal King to Rule all Nations or that as many Soveraign Kings and Princes as should from that time forward desire to rule their Subjects by any lawful Power and Authority must receive and hold the same from the said Jews their temporal Kings but did restrain their conceits within more narrow bounds thinking that their Messiah should not have such intermedling with the Gentiles but only restore the Kingdom of Israel which had for a long time been miserably shaken and rent in pieces and live in that Country amongst them in a much more glorious form and state than any of their Kings before him had done And yet notwithstanding these the said Persons having inconsiderately so far overrun the Jews in their Follies are possessed nevertheless with some Imaginations no doubt that because the Pope doth either applaud or wink at their proceedings they may in time make it probable to the simpler sort who when force is to be used do bear the greatest sway that as all Emperours and Kings forsooth held their Kingdoms from Christ as he then was and still is Man so ought they now in these days to hold them of the Pope in that if Men might safely believe them our Saviour Christ did as they say after his Ascension bestow all such Worldly Dominions upon St. Peter and consequently upon his Successors the Bishops of Rome and that now all Worldly Principalities are theirs and must be held of them as they were before of Christ after his Incarnation by as many Kings and Princes as desire to hold their Kingdoms by any right title But these are Men not to be feared For to say the truth of them they are all of them in effect either but gross and unlearned Canonists or else but new upstart and sottish Nerians and of great affinity with the Canonists who meaning as it seemeth to outstrip the Jesuits do labour as much to make the Pope a Temporal Monarch as the Jesuits have done for his pretended Spiritual Soveraignty whose endeavours are altogether as we suppose to be contemned in that both the sorts of them as well Canonists as Nerians are more voluminous in their Writings than substantial filling them principally with very idle and ridiculous Canons and Decrees of the Pope's own making and having no true feeling or sense of Divinity do handle the Scriptures when they have leisure to come unto them with so foul and unwashed hands as that their Master either is or ought to be ashamed of them in that he permitteth their so absurd Books to come abroad into the World Besides it will not a little hinder their credit if it make them not a scorn to all Posterity even amongst such Men as have otherwise made themselves Vassals to the See of Rome because the said Jesuits and some others not to have been despis'd for their learning whilst they had strived to advance the Pope's Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical have themselves in a manner broken the Neck of his fondly-conceited temporal Monarchy Some of the chiefest among them affirming very peremptorily That our Saviour Christ as Man was never a temporal King upon Earth nor ever had any such temporal Authority or Government as doth appertain unto Kings and Soveraign Princes We will set down some words of one that is of especial Authority amongst them not because we intend to ground any thing upon them but for that they are true and may perhaps be of more force than ours are like to be with some kind of People the rectifying of whose hearts in the truth we tender as much as we do our own Christ saith he did not take Kingdoms from them whose they were for Christ came not to destroy those things that were well setled but to make them better Therefore when a King is become a Christian he doth not lose his Earthly Kingdom but procureth a new Interest to a Kingdom that is Eternal Otherwise the benefit of Christ should be hurtful to Kings and Grace should destroy Nature And again Christ as he was Man whilst he lived upon the Earth neither did nor would receive any Temporal Dominion And again I say that Christ was always as the Son of God a King and Lord of all Creatures in such sort as his Father
Bishops of that See affirming That they sought the overthrow of the Empire and to bring all Men in servitude under them to the end that they themselves might thereby be the more feared and reverenced than Almighty God But the Archbishop of Juvavia now called Saltzburg in an Oration which he made in a Council of State during the said Emperour's Reign 〈◊〉 this Argument where he affirmeth that 〈…〉 Libidine dominandi did trouble the whole World audendo fallendo bella ex bellis serendo Also Otho Regulus Boiorum the Prince of Bavaria in the days of Innocentius the Fourth told the Bishops that joined with the Pope that as they grew to their greatness by discord so being overcome with desire of honour in stirring up Wars they were worse than Turks or Saracens Moreover in the days of Honorius the Fourth the Bishop of Tulle when the Pope would have set the Emperour in War against the French and under that pretence required by his Legate of all the Clergy in Germany Non Decimas sed Quartas not the Tenth but the Fourth part of their Livings moved the said Clergy and many of the State then present that they should no longer submit themselves unto the Romish Vultures who had very long tyrannized and labour'd nothing more than to thrust Princes into War one against another adding thereunto that the Pope had arm'd the Scythians Arabians and Turks against them and that he verily thought that the Pope loved them better than he did the Germans And what Men thought when they durst speak of the Bishops of Rome and his Priests in the days of Nicholas the Fourth it may appear by the words of a Nobleman one Menardus Earl of Tyrol as we conceive when he said That he would never make himself a scorn to such effeminate Antichrists and prodigious Eunuchs who being indeed saith he our Servants do sight for superiority and would domineer over us that are their Lords They are worse than Turks Saracens Tartars and Jews and do more injury to Christian simplicity Dominationem arripiunt they will by force over-rule all In the time of Ludovicus Bavarus the Emperour although three Popes successively opposed themselves against him with all the mischievous practices that they could devise yet many learned Men both Divines and Civil Lawyers did justify the Emperour's Proceedings and condemn the Popes And some wrote Books to that effect saying to the Emperour Tu nos pugnis ense ferro c. Do thou deliver us from the Pope's servitude by force c. Nos te lingua c. And we will revenge our quarrel with our Tongues our Pens our Letters our stile our Books and words And thereupon accordingly as their own Author saith they proved by the testimony both of Divine and humane Laws Joannem libidine dominandi insanire that John the Pope was grown mad through his desire of Principality and Soveraignty Also the Emperour himself about the year 1324. speaking in scorn of the said John the 22 th saith That the Pope in taking upon him to be both Augustus and Pontifex shew'd himself therein to be Monstrum biceps a Monster with two heads and that it was apparent by Divinity and all Laws that the Bishop of Rome had no interest to both these Dignities Many notable things are contain'd in divers of this Emperour's Letters and Decrees as also in the said Orations and Writings above here mention'd which are very worthy to be perused and made more known than they are All of them labouring to suppress that Insolency of the Bishops of Rome in challenging to themselves the Right of the Empire and the Authority to confirm the same as they thought good making the Emperours thereby their Vicars or Substitutes But it is most of all worthy the diligent Observation That in these later times when the grossness of Popery hath been more throughly looked into and scann'd the Jesuits themselves are grown to be asham'd of the said most absurd and ridiculous challenge And therefore Cardinal Bellarmin hath written five Chapters against it wherein he first distinguisheth them from Catholick Divines who maintain'd that Opinion and then setting down these three Propositions as sure grounds of truth viz. Papam non esse Dominum totius Mundi That the Pope is not Lord of all the World Papam non esse Dominum totius mundi Christiani That the Pope is not Lord of all the Christian World Papam non habere ullam temporalem Jurisdictionem directè That the Pope hath no temporal Jurisdiction directly he confuteth their Arguments who are of another Judgment Where he shaketh off very lightly the chief places of Scripture and some other Testimonies whereupon the said Arguments are principally grounded as that of Two Swords and where Christ saith All power is given unto me in Heaven and Earth And the Testimony likewise of Pope Nicholas affirming that Christ committed to Peter the Key-Carrier of Eternal Life terreni simul coelestis imperii Jura the Interest both of the Earthly and Heavenly Empire which he casteth away either as an Assertion forged by Gratian the same being not found in the said Pope's Writings or else to have another sense this as it is urged being against the said Pope's direct Words in one of his Epistles His first Proposition That the Pope is not Lord of all the World he justifieth in respect 1. That Infidels are not his Sheep 2. That he cannot judge Infidels 3. That Princes Infidels are true and supreme Princes of their Kingdoms because Dominion is neither founded in Grace nor Faith as it appeareth because God approved the Kingdoms of the Gentiles both in the Old and New Testament And upon these said Reasons he inferreth it to be a ridiculous Conceit for any Man to think That God gave to the Pope any Right over the Kingdoms of the whole World considering that he never gave unto him Ability to use any such Right And for the confirmation of his second Proposition That the Pope is not Lord of all the Christian World he proveth the same by these Reasons 1. Because if he had any such Dominion by the Law of God the same ought to appear either in the Scriptures or by some Apostolical Traditions but it appeareth by neither Ergo. And his second Reason is this Christ neither did nor doth take Kingdoms from any to whom they do appertain but doth rather establish them therefore when the King becometh a Christian he doth not lose his Terrene Kingdoms which lawfully before he enjoyed but he obtaineth new Right to the everlasting Kingdom Otherwise saith he the benefit received by Christ should be hurtful to Kings and Grace should destroy Nature Also he confuteth the ordinary Distinction amongst the Schoolmen and Canonists who affirm That the Pope hath both Powers in himself but doth commit the execution of the Civil