of the Learned Men who Write in favour of the Pope stick to that way As Bellarmin is the most famous amongst them and most at hand I choose his Arguments believing as he was a Man of great Reading he fail'd not to make use of all that was considerable in those who Writ before him and seeing those who Write since borrow most from him He has Five in his Book De Rom. Pont. and Four in his Answer to Barklay The First are Answered by Barklay and better by Withrington and every one who Writes of this Subject takes notice of them In Answering I make use chiefly of Withrington inserting only upon occasion what I find in others Only to indulge something to my fancy and ease it of the grievous pain of Transcribing I neither tie my self to the order nor preciseness of the Arguments but make entire Arguments of themselves what the Author meant sometimes a proof of some part of an Argument going before While you have the Substance I hope you will allow me a little Variety for my own ease Bellarmin then After he had taught against the Canonists That the Spiritual and Civil Power are in themselves distinct and have different Offices different Ends c. yet when these two meet together then he affirms they make but one Commonwealth in which the Spiritual Power is superiour to the Temporal For saies he there cannot be two Heads and therefore one Power must of necessity be subject to the other when they both Club into one Commonwealth But this they do where the Law of Christ is receiv'd For we being many are one Body in Christ Rom. 12. And in one Spirit we were all baptiz'd into one Body 1 Cor. 12. And because the Members of the same Body must depend one of another and Spirituals cannot be said to depend on Temporals Temporals must depend on Spirituals and be subject to them To this they Answer differently Some granting the Spiritual and Temporal Power make but one Commonwealth affirm the Members independent one of another as the Hand depends not on the Foot nor the Foot on the hand but each free and absolute in their proper Functions are subject only to the Supream Head Christ Others in my opinion more rationally deny the Two Powers club into one Commonwealth and say The Spiritual makes one and the Temporal another and to many others as there are Independent Heads of this Power That the same men in different respects make both these Bodies and that as Clergy and Laity and all not excepting the Prince himself in as much as they are Faithful are subject to the Spiritual Power according to the nature of Spiritual Subjection so the same Laity and Clergy not excepting the Pope himself in as much as they are Citizens and parts of the Temporal Commonwealth are subject to the Temporal Power that is for as much as concerns the Law of God purely and abstracting from Humane Constitutions and such Changes as time has brought into the World For now the Pope is himself an absolute Prince and other Clergy Men have Priviledges and Immunities justly belonging to them When therefore 't is assumed that the Church is one Body they distinguish this word Church and say if it be taken Formally that is the Faithful under the notion of Faithful then indeed they make but one Body but neither doth this Body include both Powers for 't is only the Spiritual to which they are subject as Faithful as Citizens they belong to the Temporal But if the word Church be taken Materially for the Men which make up the Church an Acception something improper but yet such as comprehends both Powers then say they In this sence the Church is not one Body but two or if you vvill twenty as many as there are several Supream Temporal Powers in Christendom One Spiritual in relation to the Spiritual Power and which is properly the Church The rest Temporal in relation to their several Temporal Heads And this Answer as it seems fair in it self and justified by the sence and apprehension of Mankind for France and Spain for example both acknowledge the Pope and are both parts of the Church and that one Body of which the Apostle speaks but he that should therefore think them not to be Two distinct Bodies and Independent Common-wealths would be thought something extravagant so 't is a little more strongly inforc'd against Bellarmin by other parts of his own Doctrine For he teaches elsewhere That Church-men besides that they are Church-men are also Citizens and parts of the Civil Common-wealth and that all Members of every Body must be subject to their respective Head That the Civil and Spiritual Power are in their nature distinct Powers and have distinct Offices and Ends c. and that Christ did distinguish the Dignities and Offices of Pope and Emperour that one should not presume upon the Rights of the other That Christian Princes as well as Infidels acknowledge no Superiour in Temporals since Christ took not away the Rights of any and a King by becoming a Christian loses no Right he had before and the like Besides this Answer seems wonderfully strengthned by some Authorities mentioned in the former Letters Such as Gelasius to the Emperour Anastasius The Prelates of the Church owe you all Obedience And again The Bishops themselves are to obey your Laws and that because there are Two principal Powers by which the World is Governed the Sacred Authority of Bishops and Regal Power Likewise Pope Anastasius to the same Emperour Bishops are subject to the Laws of the Prince in what concerns Public Discipline and Princes to Bishops in the dispensation of the Mysteries and Sacraments according to the famous Canon of Leo the IV. Nos si incompetenter It is to be noted that there are Two Persons by which this world is governed The Regal and Sacerdotal as Kings are Chief in Worldly so Priests in Divine matters Therefore David though by his Regal Vnction he were over Priests and Prophets in affairs of the World yet was under them in those of God Much more might be alledged on this Subject but this I conceive is enough to shew the Answer given to Bellarmin has the support of Authority as well as Reason A Second Argument is from the ends of both Powers whereof one being Eternal the other Temporal happiness because the Eternal happiness is the Supream and Last end of all things Temporal happiness must be subordinate to it And because according to Aristotle where the Ends are subordinate the Faculties likewise are subordinate the Civil Power which aims only at Temporal happiness must be subordinate and subject to the Spiritual which looks after Eternal This Argument they Answer likewise two waies First by granting the whole which they say concludes nothing against them For admitting the Temporal Power to be subordinate to the Spiritual nothing follows more than than 't is under the other according to the Order which the other
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
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
He has besides a second sentence of the Popes against the Barons of England by name wherein he speaks in this manner We would have you know that lately in a General Council we did excommunicate and anathematize the Barons of England moreover we do excommunicate and anathematize We aggravate our hand more strongly against them c. This bears date 17 Calend. Jan. the 16 Decemb. of the same year and 't is clear by the Pope's expressions that before this time the Council was ended and it may be had been a good while If these 60 Canons were all examined with that maturity which becomes a Council and so decreed Councils at that time were much nimbler then now a dayes If proceedings then had one quarter of the flegm we use now their suspicion is not altogether without ground who think the consultations then on foot were interrupted by the breaking out of suddain wars and nothing brought to conclusion Withrington takes another exception to this Canon which he says comes not home to the purpose nor can by the rules of Law be interpreted to extend to Soveraign Princes because as he says in construction of Law such Princes at least in penal or as they call them odious matters are never understood to be included in general words as Lords Magistrates and the like no more then the Pope when only Bishop is named or Abbot by the word Monk If it had been meant of Soveraign Princes it had been as easy to have named them expresly as temporal Lords and they were so named in other Decrees even of this Council Besides this very Decree in the very same words changing only spiritual punishments into temporal was publisht within 5 years by the Emperor and it cannot be imagined he meant to make Soveraign Princes subject to his Laws or had power so to do though he meant it These and several other things may be say'd but in my opinion they need not for there is another answer free from the intricacies whether of Law or History and which to my apprehension is both easy and plain Every body knows that Decrees of Councils are of two sorts Some declare what is to be believed others prescribe something to be done And every body knows that these two are of very different natures To refuse Decrees of Faith is to renounce the communion of that Church whose Representative the Council is that is the whole Church if the Council be general unless there be a just exception against their proceeding For Faith is that by which a Church is a Church and if you be of a different Faith you cannot be of the same Church But for the other sort of Decrees when they concern civil matters because those whose business it is to manage them are supposed to be better acquainted with them then spiritual men whose business it is to attend to spirituals neither reason nor custom allows them any force till they be received by particular Countries and by that reception made binding For it were very unreasonable one Law should bind all Countries when that which is convenient in one place may be and often is prejudicial in another We in England acknowledg no Law but by consent of Parliament In France they require Verification as they call it in their highest Courts of Justice Every Country has its particular method but what has not past this test is currant no where And this is a notorious thing for default of which there is none who knows not that these kind of Decrees of the Council of Trent are not obliging in France to this day Again t is equally notorious that the Canon in question is of this second sort Wherefore 't is as plain as can be that unless it can be made appear It has been duly receiv'd and by such reception become binding of itself it is not binding any where I mean where both powers are not united to command it For where the Pope has the Authority of a temporal Prince there both powers concur I forbear to touch several things mentioned pertinently enough As how Bishops in Council should order temporal penalties who out of Council unless they have a share of temporal power communicated otherwise to them cannot go beyond spiritual A Congregation of Bishops is but so many Bishops nor is it easy to conceive how their meeting together should invest them with an authority of another kind and such as is not proper to Bishops To which purpose a famous Canonist upon occasion of temporal penalties inflicted by a certain Canon inquires what the Pope had to do with temporals and answers truly nothing but he ordered that penalty in vertue of the Emperors consent who was present and approv'd it So that when Councils make such kind of Decrees 't will be hard to make out any other Authority by which they make them than the consent of Princes concern'd But these considerations and several other I pass by the former being plain in it self and plainly doing the business The Decree in question is of that kind which all the world knows is not binding but where and only where t is receiv'd Either produce this reception or t is to no more purpose to urg it then to alledg the authority of a Bill thrown out of one of the Houses or not assented to by the King Upon the whole if there had gone a little more knowledg to Bellarmin's zeal 't would have been so much the better He undertakes to prove that general Councils teach evidently that Princes may be depos'd by the Pope and brings in proof a Decree which teaches nothing but orders that which none is bound to obey unless he live in a Country who have made it a Law to themselves if any such Country there be And if this be his evident teaching it will be concluded that his Doctrine in this point can be taught no otherwise then by a teaching which evidently is no teaching Bellarmin concludes with the Council of Lyons under Innocent 4. in which there was publisht a sentence of deposition against the Emperor Frederick 2. This as Art requires at a close he sets forth as gloriously as he can Having related the later part of the sentence This says he is the sentence of the Soveraign Bishop with approbation of the whole Council that is with the consent and praise of the Vniversality of Christian Prelates And yet one I know not who dares dispute against it and publish his Book and cast a mist before the eyes of the simple and so goes on to the end of the Chapter amplifying the boldness and rashness of standing in opposition to so many and so learned and so holy men whom for the greater solemnity he gathers all into one great Council excommunicating and deposing by Apostolick Authority Heretical Princes or Patrons of Hereticks And upon this fancy of making one Council of all ages he is so intent that he quite forgets that Heretical Princes were no part of the
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
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
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
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
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
But if they will not and become bad there is none according to S. Thomas who has power to condemn them Alex. Alensis in Psal 50. I have sinn'd to Thee alone because there is no other above me who can punish me For I am a King and none is above me but you alone And Part. 3. A King is above all and therefore to be judged by God alone since he has not any man who can judge his actions nor is to be punisht by man But if any of the People sin they sin both against God and the King Nicholaus de Lyra. I have sinn'd to Thee alone as my Judge and who has power to punish for he had sinned against Vrias and others slain upon this occasion Yet because he was a King he had no superiour Judge to punish him but God Otho Frisingens Ep. ad Frederic before his Chronic. Whilst no person is found in the world who is not subject to the Laws of the world and by that subjection kept in awe Kings alone as being above Laws and reserved to the Divine Judgment are not aw'd by the Laws of the world Witness that both King and Prophet I have sinned to Thee alone Joan. de Turrenm in Psal 50. I have sinn'd to Thee alone as my Judge and who has power to punish me because Thou alone art above me who canst judge my Crimes Dio Vega in conc Vespert super Psal 50. con 2. Wherefore leaving them we must go the common way with the Fathers of the Church Hierom Austin Ambrose Chrysostome and Cassiodorus who say that David therefore us'd these words because being a Soveraign King he was subject to none but God accountable to the Laws of none and none but God could punish his sin For a King though he be subject to the Directive power of the Law yet is not to the Coactive Joan. de Pineda upon 34. Job For if a King or Prince will not willingly obey the Law who can oblige or by force constrain him Yet let Princes understand at last that if they do not of their own will keep the Law they shall render an account to the Supream King and be punisht for the Violation of Justice I conclude with a Jesuite Lorinus upon Psal 50. I have sinn'd to Thee alone viz. as alone knowing or having power to punish his sin who was a King and had no Superior None can say Apostate to a King or call Judges wicked unless he will be thought wicked himself as Chrysostom and Nicetas and Cyril in this place note I hope by this time you will acknowledge it was a superfluous care of yours for the security of Princes if that were your reason which made you so sollicitous for the immediate power For whatever become of that this is universally fixt That Kings are accountable to none but God And I think you need not much care what people say in a question disputed amongst Learned men when that for whose sake you desire it should be resolv'd is it self so fully resolv'd to your hand To deal with sincerity I should acquaint you what shifts they make to escape the weight of this Authority who undertake to abett a Power paramount in the Pope But they are such plain shifts that in truth I have not patience to insist upon them Some say this held among the Jewish Kings who were above the Priesthood but holds not among Christians who are subject to it as if Christian Princes were less absolute than those of the Jews or Christianity took away the Right of any body much less Princes I alwaies thought that much good had come to the world by Christian Religion and the concerns of Mankind went on more sweetly and more strongly but that it should be guilty of so great a mischief as to shake the foundations of Government so beneficial and necessary to humane Nature is a scandal which methinks a Christian ear should not hear with patience And Bellarmin give him his due as much a favourer of the Pope as he is in this yet is more a friend to Truth and tells us De Rom. Pont. L. 1. c. 29. That the Gospel deprives no man of his Right and Dominion but gets him a new right to an eternal Kingdom Nor have Kings less power in the New Testament than they had in the old And yet He with his distinctions betwixt Fact and Right Power direct and indirect with one whereof he still endeavours to ward all blows makes as mad work and reduces things to as much confusion I shall say nothing to them more than to entreat you to be Judge your self and consider whether in what I have alledged there be any room for those Inventions and whether the Doctrine be not delivered too plainly to be put off with such evasions And so I come to your Second Point and for the fear you have of Bellarmin's Argument peradventure it were Answer enough to say That S. Bernard understood what was meant by the word Feed as well at least as Bellarmin and he notwithstanding all the Cardinals acuteness tells Pope Eugenius L. 4. c. 3. that to Feed is to Evangelize Perform saies he the work of an Evangelist and you have fulfilled the duty of a Pastour Again Serm. de Resurrect Feed with your Mind with your Mouth with your Actions feed with prayer of the Mind exhortation of the Word proposal of Example I suppose no good Catholic but will side with S. Bernard rather than Bellarmin for as great a Schollar as Bellarmin was he is not yet thought a match for S. Bernard But neither is he alone of this mind Petrus Blesensis saies almost in the same words Ep. 148. What is to Feed the Sheep but to Evangelize to render the People acceptable to God by Word by Work by Example And thus Innocent III. and a great many more are cited by Caron to interpret this word Feed so that all the Cardinal 's subtle speculations upon the metaphor us'd in the Gospel hinder not the Argument from being as insignificant as you and more besides you to my knowledge think it And if I have not yet said enough to it hearken a little to S. Chrysost de Sacerd. L. 2. It is not lawful for a man to cure a Man with the same Authority with which a Shepheard cures his Sheep For here it is free to bind and restrain from pasture and burn and cut There the Medicine and power of the cure is not in him who Administers but in him who is Sick But we shall hear more of him anon Mean time since the Point you have propos'd besides your recommendation deserves in it self more consideration than this Argument Let me tell you for your satisfaction That those who treat these things put many differences betwixt the Spiritual and Civil power from the manner of Institution the ends at which they aim the means they use to their several ends c. That which I conceive most to your purpose is
either grounded upon or warranted by the Instruction left by S. Peter to his fellow Pastours in these words 1 Pet. 5. Feed the flock of God which is among you providing not by constraint but willingly according to God neither for filthy lucre sake but voluntarily neither as over-ruling the Clergy but made Examples of the flock from the heart From these words some gather this difference betwixt the Spiritual and Temporal Power that the one is accompanied with the power of Constraint the other not I know the word Coacte is sometimes expounded otherwise and that some and in particular V. Bede understand by it the exclusion of that Mercenary interest which in service some propose to themselves while others serve for Love And this sence is without doubt a good and a true one but I know not whether the Apostle meant it though peradventure he or rather his Inspirer might according to S. Austin's Rule That all the Truth was meant by God which is contained in the words he Inspired Otherwise that seems to be the import of the Second Branch Not for lucre but voluntarily and this Interpretation with a needless tautology makes the two branches signifie but one thing which the Apostle seems nevertheless to distinguish However it be considering that before S. Peter Christ himself puts Dominion and non-dominion for the difference betwixt Secular and Spiritual Power The Kings of the Gentiles have dominion over them but you not so Luke 22.25 And that S. Paul tells the Corinthians The arms of his warfare are not carnal Cor. 10. I conceive that whatever S. Peter meant this doctrine is very true that Force and Constraint belong only to the Civil Magistrate and not to the Spiritual I mean in vertue of his being a Spiritual Magistrate for these Formalities of which you profess'd so much dislike return again in spight of my teeth and there is no discoursing without them Otherwise the man who is a Spiritual Magistrate may upon other accounts justly have and justly use Constraint nay it may be his due in consideration of his Spiritual Magistracy but not originally deduc'd from thence but annexed to it or accrued by other means According to S. Bernard mentioned in my last Not by right of Apostleship Now if I can make out to you that it may irreprovably be held in our Church that this Spiritual Power of which you are so jealous cannot use Force or Constraint upon any man I hope you will have no cause of complaint against it nor fewel for those fears which still disquiet you For certainly a Power which cannot use Force is a little dangerous If it can perswade you to what it would you then act by your Inclination or Choice but if it cannot you are free to do what you will And I think you would not wish to be more safe Consider then what men they are whom they must reprove who will reprove this Doctrine And first S. Hierom delivers it very plainly Epitaph Nepot Ep. 3. We must obey the Bishop as the King nay the Bishop less than the King for he is over the unwilling the Bishop over the willing One subjects by Fear the other is given to Service One imprisons the Body to death the other preserves the Soul to life S. Greg. Nazian Apologet We ought not to constrain by Force or Necessity but perswade by Reason and Example of our lives Again Our Law and Law-maker have especially provided that the flock be fed not by constraint but freely and willingly And Orat. 1. cont Jul. Apost These things Julian had in his mind as those who were privy to his secrets discovered but he was restrained by the clemency of God and the tears of the Christians whereof many and by many had now been shed since this was their only remedy against a Persecutor S. Jo. Chrysost in Act. Hom. 3. comparing the care of a Bishop with the care of a Father makes that of a Bishop much more heavy as having more Children and less Power What saies he will not the Bishop endure who has so many not of his houshold Family but whose Obedience is in their own power Again The Emperour has command over the whole world the Bishop is Bishop only of one City and yet he has as much more care as there is difference betwixt a River stir'd with the wind and the Sea swelling and raging Why so because there are there more helps since all things are perform'd by Laws and Commands here is no such thing for it is not lawful to command by Authority Hom. 10. in 1. Thessalon A Father both by Natural and Civil Laws uses his Child with much freedome If he instruct him against his will if he strike him none hinders him nor dares the Son himself look up A Priest has much difficulty for first he must rule those that are willing to be ruled and whom by his government he is to please Again We domineer not over your Faith Beloved nor order these things by the right of command and dominion To us is commended the speech of Doctrine not the Authority of Power and Principality We hold the place of Counsellors and Exhortors He who counsels when he delivers his opinion forces not the hearer to accept it but leaves in his power the free choice of what is to be done And Hom. 1. in Ep. ad Tit. I omit to say that a Bishop cannot with truth be called a Prince Why Because it is in the Power of their Subjects to obey or not Again De Sacerdot L. 2. External Judges when they find wicked men who have transgrest the Laws shew themselves endued with great Power and Authority and force them to change their manners whether they will or no. But here we must not use force but only perswade and by that means make him become better whose cure we have undertaken For neither have we any Power given by Law to force Delinquents and if we had we have not whereon to exercise this force and Power since Christ gives an eternal Kingdom to those who not by force but by a firm resolution of the soul abstain from sin Wherefore there is need of much art that Christians who are ill-affected will perswade themselves that they ought submit to the cure of Priests Again upon these words in the last to the Heb. Hom. Ult. Obey your Prelates that they may do this with joy not lamenting c. You see that when an Ecclesiastical Prince is contemned he ought not return revenge but all his revenge is to weep and sigh And upon Isa 6. Hom. 4. The King forces the Priest exhorts He with necessity this by counsel He has sensible this spiritual arms c. S. Aust de fide oper C. 2. says The material sword used in the Old Testament by Moyses and Phinees was a figure of the degradations and excommunications to be exercised in the New when in the discipline of the Church the visible sword should cease Origen
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
thought necessary Learned Men should be constrain'd by Oaths and fear of Penalties terribilibus comminationibus to declare their thoughts of this matter Possibly Interest may have had some share in this backwardness Men of this sort of Learning belong most to the Church and may peradventure consider that If they displease him who carries the Keys he may perhaps make use of them to shut the Gates of Ecclesiastical preferment Besides they have been diligent to discountenance and suppress all Books written against the Popes Power so that a Private man cannot write without the hazard of a Censure on his Book and possibly on his Person These I think are the true Reasons I am sure they are good ones of the backwardness which you phansie proceeds from a prohibition of the Church and with a great deal of injustice and no truth heighten into malice and the execrable hypocrisie of teaching two Religions one to be published the other conceal'd and I know not what when all this while I assure you there is no such thing as a Prohibition of the Church at least that I know of for any man to speak what he thinks what Fisher mentions was a private Order made amongst the Jesuites and concerns only themselves but wise men are not forward to speak what may turn to their prejudice nor quiet men to interpose in the concerns of higher and the Highest Powers as I conceive they are not therefore blameable However it be He who from the Sence of those who have vvrit would infer the Sence of all Learned Men concludes in my opinion very fallaciously Those who Write not and whose Sence we know not being much more Numerous and every jot as Learned as those who Write But to let that pass this Doctrine has found a different reception in the world The French as their natures are frank and open without more adoe plainly deny it and besides a great many reiterated Arrest of Parliament have solemnly condemn'd it in all their Universities In other Countries they are more reserv'd and rather oppose the Execution of the Power than the Power it self They let the Pope and any for him talk as they please but when it comes to Practice it alwaies proves unjust in that particular and I believe alwaies shall do In Brabant the Custom is That all Bulls are understood of course to be Subreptitious till they be approv'd by the Prince In other places they have other expedients but as far as I see by several means they all compass the same end and admit no more than they think stands with their Profit Only the French bluntly tell the Pope You cannot others use softer words but their Actions say You shall not farther than we think fit Now for the Opinion of the Canonists since Divines universally reject it I may without more adoe reject it with them Of the other it may be enquir'd Whether it be of Faith and Whether it be True which are very different Questions And for Faith I positively and freely disclaim it both because the Maintainers of it themselves confess it is not and though some are unwary enough to heighten it to that degree yet they are but few and their rashness is generally condemn'd as ill grounded and carried too far And besides I see the contrary is openly maintain'd by as numerous and considerable a Member as any belongs to the Catholic Church and while at Rome they condemn Withrington and Barklay at Paris they condemn Bellarmin and Suarez The Pope and the rest of the vvorld knows and sees this and yet Communicate freely with them and account them all the while good Catholics Which is plainly to acknowledge it is no point of Faith in which they differ for if it were they could no more Communicate with them than with Arrius or Pelagius neither is any consideration of their Power or concern of Policy able to justifie or dispense with acknowledging him a Catholic who persists to maintain an Heresie All the difficulty is Whether it be true or no. And who am I that I should undertake to dogmatize in an Age so Antidogmatical and where no vanity is thought greater than that of Dogmatizing and this in a Question which has exercised the Wit and Learning of Men esteem'd so great that to oppose them may chance be counted Arrogance The most I can do is to tell you what I think and what I think is even in my own judgment so inconsiderable that I think it a great deal better to play the Historian than the Disputer and hope you will be satisfied if I inform you as much as I know of this Question and relate the Arguments hitherto produc'd on both sides at least as far as I am acquainted with them and leave you to judge as you see cause By this means as you will have all the Information I can give you so none can rationally blame me for barely relating what every body either knows already or may know that will take the pains to look upon what is publickly and every where extant But before I begin the Arguments it will not be amiss to look a little into the Origin of this Dispute and consider when and how it came into the vvorld Gregory the VIIth was the first that brought it on the Stage Till his time the Independent Power of Princes was never questioned They not only quietly dispos'd of Civil matters without controll except where any notorious Injustice happened and then both Popes and other zealous Prelates took the liberty to reprehend and sometimes Excommunicate them but had no small share in Ecclesiastical matters so far as to make Laws concerning them to invest the Persons duly chosen to Benefices and confirm the Election even of Popes themselves which was not held valid without their approbation Take it in the words of Onuphrius no enemy to this Pope Onuph de var. Creat Rom. Pont. L. 4. Though formerly the Bishops of Rome were respected as the Heads of Christian Religion the Vicars of Christ and Successors of Peter yet their Authority extended no farther than either to assert or maintain the Doctrines of Faith For the rest they were subject to the Emperours all things were done by Their appointment Themselves were Created by them neither did the Pope dare to judge or determine any thing concerning them Gregory the VIIth was the First of all the Bishops of Rome who relying on the Arms of the Normans and Wealth of the Countess Mathildis a Woman of great Power in Italy and inflam'd by the discord of the Princes of Germany opprest with Civil Wars contemning contrary to the Custom of his Predecessours the Imperial Power and Authority after he had obtain'd the Pontificate durst not only Excommunicate but deprive the Emperour by whom he had been if not Elected at least Confirm'd of his Kingdom and Empire A thing to that Age unheard of for as for the Fables which go about of Arcadius and Anastius and Leo the
Iconoclast I value them not Thus then stood things in the vvorld when Hildebrand Archdeacon of the Church of Rome was chosen to the Papacy in the year 1083 and called Gregory the VIIth The Contests which in his daies began betwixt the Spiritual and Civil Power are the reason I suppose why he is so differently represented by those who vvrite of him His Enemies give him the Character of an Imperious Tyrannical and several waies Wicked Man his Friends on the other side praise him as much and affirm he was a man of great Prudence and Vertue and so far that it hath been attested by several Miracles And for my own part I must confess I incline to believe well of him For he had been the support of the Papacy during the time of several Popes his Parts and Industry having drawn upon him the greatest weight of all business and was so far from aspiring to that dignity that if Baronius say true He treated with the Emperour not to consent to his Election assuring him before hand that if he did He would be very severe against the Abuses practic'd in his Court. Besides if Sigonius may be believ'd and the passages he relates vvhich can hardly be read vvithout horrour the Emperour was a very Wicked Man but that which concerns this matter was That all Benefices were with all the Licentiousness of a depraved Court expos'd to sale and He that could Fee a Courtier was vvithout Merit or even Capacity possest of the most considerable Preferments of the Church As this vvas a mischief palpably destructive to all Goodness so 't is not incredible from the irregularity of a debauch'd Court. And if the Pope desir'd to have it remedied the end he propos'd was but what became him if the means had been so too I am the more inclin'd to believe this true because the Germans in a great measure took part with the Pope forct the Emperour to comply and after several Traverses at last took the Crown from him and plac'd it on his Son However it were the Emperour notwithstanding the Popes Remonstrances gives consent to the Election and confirms him and the Pope was as good as his word And first Excommunicates those who should receive Investitures of Benefices from Laymen afterwards the Laymen who should grant them and lastly provok'd by the Emperour who in a Synod at Wormes had forbidden Obedience to him Excommunicates and deposes the Emperour himself And this iâ— the first unquestionable Example of this kind which has appear'd in the Christian World Bellarmin indeed and his Followers would make us believe there are Examples more Ancient but in my opinion he proves them not well and you see Onuphrius counts them but Fables and those of that Age at least those vvho favoured the Emperour exclaim'd against it as a Novelty unheard of not to call it Heresie as one faies But though the thing were now done it appears not yet in vertue of what Power 't was done As that Age was not I think extraordinary subtle the distinctions of Direct and Indirect Power were not yet found out and the Pope himself speaks in common That the care of the Christian World and Authority to bind and loose was committed to him confiding in the Judgment and Mercy of God and Patronage of the B. Virgin and supported by the Authority of SS Peter and Paul c. but descends not to particulars So that it appears not whether he acted in vertue of a Spiritual or Temporal Power Directly or Indirectly and 't is likely he speculated not so far One thing is pretty remarkable in his second Sentence for he made two which ends in this manner After he had commanded all concerned to withdraw their Obedience from Henry and yield it to Rudolphus speaking as he does all along to the Apostles SS Peter and Paul You then See the words in Platina saies he most holy Princes of the Apostles confirm what I have said by your Authority that all men at last may understand if you can bind and loose in Heaven we likewise on Earth may give and take away Empires Kingdoms Principalities and whatever mortals can have Let Kings and all Princes of the World understand by his Example what you can do in Heaven and what power you have with God and hereafter fear to contemn the commands of the Holy Church And shew this Judgment upon Henry quickly that all Sons of Iniquity may perceive that he falls from his Kingdom not by chance but by your means This nevertheless I desire from you that by Repentance he may at your request find favour of our Lord at the day of Judgment For my part I cannot imagine but a man who speaks thus must needs mean uprightly and think at least he does well Notwithstanding the Apostles did not do as he desir'd them For this Rudulphus after he had fought twice upon equal terms with the Emperour was overthrown in the third Battle and so wounded in the right hand that he dy'd of it and dy'd full of Repentance and acknowledgment of his own fault and the Justice of God who had deservedly punisht him in that hand with which he had formerly sworn Fealty and Service to his Lord. So that though I believe the Pope thought himself much in the right yet the Court of Heaven thought not fit to grant his Request but ordered things quite contrary to his expectation and desire The next famous Example is of Frederic the IId a Prince of great Power and Parts who falling out with several Popes as resolute as himself after several breaches at several times made up and several Sentences publisht and recall'd and renew'd again was at last with the astonishment and horrour of all present saies M. Paris solemnly Excommunicated and depos'd in the Councel of Lions And this made both Princes and Prelates begin to look about them foreseeing that if this deposing Power should go on a slight Pretence might at last serve turn to unthrone perhaps an Innocent Man and bring the vvorld into confusion which possibly was the cause the Popes Sentence was not executed For this Frederic notwithstanding those proceedings kept the Empire till his death which happened long after But still I see not any ground to judge whether the Power were yet thought Direct or Indirect and in likelyhood People had in common a great Veneration for the Supream Pastour and his Decrees and thought them wicked men vvho submitted not to them but what kind of Power he had and hovv far it extended as far as I can perceive they little considered 'T is observable both in this Sentence and the former of Gregory VII that the Emperour is first Deposed and afterwards Excommunicated in aggravation as it were of the former Penalty The business was a little more discust in the Contests betwixt Boniface the VIIIth and Philip the Fair of France As this Pope is Recorded for a man of more mettle than Vertue his proceedings were
equality or else they make the Disturbance and Hazard of the Commonwealth no mischief which that Bellarmin should go about to perswade them argues he had more confidence in his Logic than they have Opinion of his Judgment 'T is great pity this Doctrine if it be true was not in fashion a little sooner the Ignorance of it cost the life of many a good Christian and the Bloud of abundance of Innocent Men shed in Ten Persecutions might have been saved if the first Masters of Christianity had Instructed People a little better and made them understand the convenient use of their Power For it had been but Antidating a little the course of Providence and setting up a Christian Emperour in the place of Nero or Dioclesian and all had been well And 't is a little strange those Primitive Christians whom none suspects of want of Zeal either understood or practis'd their duty no better Neither the one nor the other saies Bellarmin but the Reason why they Depos'd not Nero and Dioclesian and the Apostate Julian and Valens the Arian was because they wanted Force For that they wanted not Right nor the Knowledge of it is apparent by the Apostle who 1 Cor. 16. bids the Christians appoint New Judges and if they could make New Judges they might as well have made New Kings if their Force had been equal to their Justice But certainly some body is extreamly out Bellarmin or his Adversaries for they affirm very confidently that the Primitive Christians were not so weak and helpless as he pretends S. Peter himself liv'd in Nero's time and he had power to restore the dead to life and cast the living into sudden death A body would think this was Power enough in conscience and that Nero with all his Guards and Legions was not more secure of his Empire against this miraculous and unresistable Force than Ananias of his life It was not then for want of Power that he taught Christians to be subject to the King as most excelling c. and choose to lay down his own life amongst the rest rather then practice an expedient which Bellarmin thinks so necessary and which to him had been easie enough if he had been of Bellarmins mind But to speak only of Humane Power Tertullian liv'd in those daies and Writ what he saw and knew He affirms the contrary to what Bellarmin thinks very plainly Apologet. C. 37. Should we want Numbers or Forces if we had a mind to be open Enemies not secret Revengers Are the Moors and Marcomans and Parthians and whatever Nations of one place and confin'd to their own Limits more than those of the whole World We are but Men of yesterday and yet have filled all the places you have your Cities Islands Castles Burroughs Councels and Camp it self your Tribes Courts Palaces the Senate and the Market We have left you only the Temples For what War are not we fit and ready even though we were Inferiour in Number who endure death so willingly if in this Discipline it were as lawful to Kill as to be killed c Eusebius L. 8 c. 1. Writing of the times before Dioclesian Who shall describe saies he the numerous Congregations and multitudes of meetings in every City and the open concourse to Oratories for which not content with the Ancient Buildings they in every City set up spacious and Large Churches from the very Foundations A thing testifi'd by Maximinus himself who saies to Sabinus that Dioclesian and Maximinian commanded Christians to be proceeded against because they saw Omnes ferè mortales All men generally leaving the Worship of the gods Euseb L. 9. C 9. unite themselves to the Christians The Army of Julian too was almost all Christian say Historians in so much that when Jovinian chosen Emperour after his death shew'd a backwardness to his Election as being himself a Christian and unwilling to take the Command of Men accustomed to Wickedness under Julian Theodor. L. 4. C. 1. they all cry'd out He should not doubt and refuse a Command not Wicked That he should be an Emperour of Christians and Men brought up in Discipline and Piety which the Elder of them learnt of Constantine and the Younger of Constantius and that if Julian had circumvented some he liv'd not long enough to settle the Mischief S. Austin too testifies of them In Psal 124. that They could at their pleasure have deposed Julian but would not because they were subject for Necessity not only to avoid Anger but for Conscience and Love and because our Lord so commanded And abundance more they alledge in this kind To the Proof which Bellarmin brings from 1 Cor. they Reply That since the Christians had Force enough to Create New Judges they see not why they had not Force enough to Create New Kings too And the truth is if the Judges meant by the Apostle were such as could claim and exercise the Authority invested in those who were appointed by the Prince it was little less than to set up New Kings or at least deprive their Old of a good part of the Subjection due to them For he that refuses to submit to a Magistrate Commissionated by a Prince makes more bold with the Prince himself than is consistent with the duty of a Subject For since the Inferiour Judge has his Authority from the Prince to refuse it is in plain terms to refuse the Authority of the Prince Which the Apostle they think was far enough from Authorizing or even perswading Christians to do They conceive then that what the Apostle did in this case is no more than what Good Judges ought to do at this day it being no unusual thing for them to wish the parties not to expect the Rigour of the Law but compound their Differences fairly amongst themselves to which purpose they either Assign or leave them to choose Umpires themselves Yet all this while never intend by their Charitable Compassion to forfeit their own Right or debar the Parties from having recourse to them again if the other Method proves not to their satisfaction Such say they was the Apostles meaning in that place He desired to prevent as much as might be all Contentions among the Faithful at least the Scandal of their breaking out and being taken notice of in the Courts of Heathens To this purpose he wishes them to keep their Frailties from becoming public and if they could not avoid Contentions at least to end them by the Judgment of Men chosen amongst themselves but never intended to invest the Men so chosen with an Authority any way prejudicial to that of the lawful Magistrate Even now say they the Apostles whether Counsel or Command is still in force and People do ill who expose their Frailties to the knowledge of Public Courts notwithstanding if they will needs go to Law Courts have their full Power now as they had then and as much as if S. Paul had never written any such thing
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
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
to wear his Crown at solemn Festivals and for some Bishop to put it on his head The Pope forbad the Bishops to serve the King in this Ceremony it seeming improper that persons of their dignity in the Church should so far communicate with a man deservedly lying under the censures of the Church as to contribute to his honor at the sacred Offices And this is all the Crown of which Ivo speaks and talks of restoring 'T was at most a matter of pure ceremony in which the Pope was not obey'd neither For Ivo himself writs that notwithstanding his commands to the contrary Bishops were found who performed that Office to the King But for the rest the Kings reign was neither interrupted nor disquieted France giving a very good example of the duty of subjects in that case when in the words of Paulus Aemilius they preserv'd inviolate the Majesty of a faulty Prince and yet themselves degenerated not from the holiness of their Ancestors I mention not his additional proof from Vignier because he had better have let him alone since Barclay has caught him tardy and shew'd that what Vignier says related to another Philip who liv'd a hundred years after this Philip of whom Bellarmin speaks And I conceive He might as well have let alone the Council of Clermont as Vignier for there is no proof that the King was depos'd by or in it To return now to Greg. 7. He says Bellarmin in a Synod at Rome publickly and solemnly and ceremoniously with the consent and applause of all present deposed and excommunicated the Emperor Henry 4. And to this Synod must be added 5 more held by his Successors at Beneventum by Victor 3 Piacenza by Vrban 2. Rome by Paschal 2. Colen by Gelasius 2. and Rhemes by Calistus 2. in which the sentence of Gregory 7 was confirmed Of these six if Jo. Barclay say true five are plainly nothing to the matter For there is not a word of deposition in any of them There is mention of Excommunication sometimes of the Emperor himself sometimes of the Anti-Pope set up by the Emperor and his complices but deposition not so much as once named Besides Henry 4. with whom Greg. 7. had to do was dead before the times of Gelasius and Calistus to make them renue the sentence of deposition given first by Greg. 7. is a great inadvertence 'T is true all his Successors kept up the quarrel about Lay-investitures and that occasioned all the Decrees he mentions and some more remembred by Schulkenius till Calistus with a wise and successful piety compos'd the difference And I think it cannot be imagined he should depose the Emperor with whom he treated and concluded Peace There remains only the fact of Greg. 7. himself and that indeed past in a Council but what share the Council had in it is something obscure I suspect he was more beholding to his Rhetorick for those flourishing additions of the consent and applause of all present then the warrant of any good authority For Platina says expresly there were some present so far from being fully satisfi'd that they urg'd a King was not to be excommunicated so soon And the Decree it self mentions neither consent nor privity of any besides the Pope whose act the stile makes it and that so entirely that were it not known by other means it could never be discovered by the sentence that there was any such thing as a Council then in being The truth is the Pope was smartly provoked For besides that he had been forcibly seized on even at the Altar and hurried into prison from whence he was the next day rescued by the people a Synod of Worms called by the Emperor had little better then deposed him first We denounce unto you say they that as we have promised no obedience to you so from henceforth we mean to pay none In consequence of this Decree one Roland a Clergyman of Parma was sent to Rome and there publickly forbad the Pope to act as Pope for the future and commanded the Cardinals to leave him and repair to the Emperor to receive another Pope Whether he had not begun with the Emperor is another question There are who think he had But however to be so sharply dealt with would make a man look about him And 't is clear this business at Worms hapned before his sentence at Rome where 't is very likely they might think they had as much power to to depose the Emperor as they in Germany to depose the Pope If I may be permitted to speak with freedom I should think this counter-authority of Councils one against another for it was not only Pope against Emperor but Council against Council is a more proper argument of human frailty then Catholick doctrine One may perceive that Princes never fall out but there will be partakers on both sides and that among those who are least liable to the suspition of being sway'd to injustice the wisest and gravest and of greatest dignity But how any thing should be efficaciously concluded from Councils which are opposed by other Councils as many as full consisting of persons the Pope excepted equal in dignity and reputation whether for learning or vertue is hard to conceive Tumult and Bitterness and Animosity are no very proper dispositions for the calm and gentle operations of the H. Spirit and such there were at that time or else the world was then a great deal more holy then now There was among them that would have caused passion among us and things were done by them which passionate people do with us where we see the fruits we cannot but suspect the Tree The Emperor for his part had the Pope to countenance the Saxons against him and by his spiritual authority counterpoise the weight of his arms This would vex a man of a high spirit ambitious of glory and impatient of contradiction unless he were a Saint which is not written of that Emperor On the other side the Pope had the Emperor averse to the liberality then intended and after brought to effect of the Countess Mathildis and unwilling so great an occasion should be made to the Church of lands to which if I mistake not the Emperor pretended He must be a very great Saint too if he could look upon the hopes of so great an advantage without passion and not be tempted to weaken a man whom he saw would cross him as much as he could These reasons for animosity among others there were and if they did not work they were the holyer men But I think no man is bound to believe that the pretences used in matters of great consequence are alwaies the true causes neither is it hard when people are resolved to fall out and set the best face they can each on his several side by some means or other to draw in the pretence of Religion which as it carries the fairest shew is generally nearest at hand But I rove too far with my fools
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
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
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
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
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