competency of temporal as well as plentitude of Spiritual Authority in the World We do not find for some Ages after that though several Emperours turned Arrian any Pope pretended to an Authority of dispensing their Subjects from the Oaths of Fidelity they had taken to them But it is possible some may and not impertinently answer There was then scarce such a thing in the World as an Oath of Allegiance therefore Dispensations from what were not in being could not be expected To this I assent and do well know Christian Religion in its Primitive Innocency taught obedience from the Laws of Nature which some called Conscience and did not suppose any persons truly toucht with its divine Doctrines could need any other obligation to perform their duties either to God or their Neighbour than what their sacred Initiating Vow of Baptism laid upon them And so far I believe the Quakers not without a true hint that they needed one amongst another no other affirmations but Yea and Nay and that they guided their Conversations by the true Rule Nature had taught them which the Quakers call the Light within them But when Religion became National and that many wicked people took the name of Christianity more for worldly than heavenly advantage then were they forced to have recourse to new sort of solemn Oaths taken either in Publick Churches where Kings did likewise condescend to take new invented Coronation Oaths and the People Oaths of Subjection in return In the management of which Ceremony the Bishops were the chief Officers which by degrees hankt a great respect to them and they not a little ambitious of more taught the dependency of Subjects and Princes one upon the other not to be from the Laws of Nature but from these Compacts which their Authority and nothing else could make Sacred These dangerous Tenets Princes not only at first connived at but made use of For the greatest part of the World being then shifting Subjection from the Roman Empire to native or more neighbouring Dominions was shatter'd into petty Regencies so that the Bishops who preserved a kind of Unity of their distinct Authorities in that of the Roman Sees had a greater power over the common peoples minds than those Kings of Counties had So that indeed Dominion was often transferred from lawful Princes that durst stomach these spiritual Usurpations to Usurpers that would truckle to the Clergy for their good word to prefer them Thus all things becoming again as in the first corruruption of humane Nature where every body were forced to secure themselves from violence and oppression by obligations they believed most sacred Oaths invented or formed by Popes and other Bishops became the Method which when there was a necessity of breaking then they were consulted with as persons best able to judge of that necessity and above all of them the Pope as the most eminent and then thought most disinterested Bishop he being well provided for in Temporalties and very much eased from such entire subjection to the Civil Magistrate as other Bishops in particular still remained under so from an unprejudiced assistant to Conscience he by frequency of Addresses became at length an Umpire then in a manner sole Judge of what Oaths or Compacts remained sacred and what by contingencies ceased to be obligatory So by degrees as naturally all men aspire after Power he took upon him to give and the World accepted from him of course Dispensations from any Vows were troublesom either to their affairs or appetites and it may be if he could have stopt here the World and most Princes in it would have been contented still to have made use of this impossible Power he had assumed but at last they flew to such Practices as disturbed nay destroyed their own Soveraign the Emperours that opposed their insolencies and attempted no less against most Christian Kingdoms nay to such a height were they arrived that few Kingdoms but must owne they did at one time or other receive a new Race of Kings from their appointment And though several of them as particularly this Kingdom have by Gods Providence received again their natural Princes yet was it long first and perhaps not truly in this Nation till King James's assuming the Crown But this excess as well in their extention as execution of their usurp't Authority alarm'd the World and put that upon new Consultations for its safety against a Power which pretended to the deposing of Princes and alteration of Governments without so fair a warning as the beat of Drum This produced our Statute of Praemunire against any person that should bring a Bull from Rome and that as early as Richard the Second's days wherein it is likewise provided That if any Nuntio Legate c. should presume to set foot in this Nation on a Message from the Pope without having first procured the Kings Licence he should be proceeded against as an Enemy to the State This and many other Laws of the like kind made both in this Nation and other Kingdoms about those times sufficiently shew how weary and afraid the Catholick World were grown of the Popes Pride and Usurpations But to return to the matter If we will be so foolish to allow all things may lawfully be done that have successfully been so then the Popes have not only a Power to absolve all persons from their Oaths and Compacts but likewise to alter the Government of Nations and dispense to Subjects their natural obediences to their lawful Soveraigns which are Tenets few Roman Catholicks in the World do hold to the full and such as do it is pity should be suffered to breathe any Air in safety but that of S. John's de Lateran or the Vatican But not to leave the matter fully as I found it upon doubtful Suppositions whether they have any Authority or no to dispense with any sort of Vows whatsoever I will proceed to divide all sorts of Oaths in the World under these three several kinds First Oaths to declare ones assent or to strengthen ones duty in performance of such things as the Law imprinted in every rational Soul does require should however be done Secondly Oaths of Compact between Prince and Prince State and State or private person and private person c. Thirdly Voluntary Vows or Oaths to perform some Religious exercise or function c. Under these three Heads I conceive all Oaths that have ever seemed to need or require Dispensation do fall As from Oaths in Evidence those come not under our consideration Now in the first kind neither the Pope nor any Power that is or ever was visible on Earth could or can dispense for that implies an Authority to give leave to commit things malas in se and under this Head does clearly fall obedience of Subjects to their Princes Children to their Parents c. things that if there never had been Religion would have no sooner lost their respect but humane Nature would have lost its being
allowed to be no Sin but wholly Indifferent as is plain from the Practice in France and all other Nations But this is such a Truth that should I bring Arguments to prove it so it would appear as impertinent in me as a long Harangue would be to prove there are such things as Penal Laws against Recusancy in England which I suppose to you Brother would be very needless Now this granted That it is not Malum in se how then can it be a Sin Certainly it must be against some express Command to the contrary and so it will fall under that Head of Malum Prohibitum Now if I prove it not under this last then it can be no Sin at all And this will be no hard Task to perform For Dear Brother do but bestow a very little thinking Half as much as a Meditation before a Mass will serve of that Authority which the Pope has left himself in England and you will find that all Bulls formerly sent or hereafter to come from Rome during the continuance of this Excommunication are to be lookt on here as fraudulent false and forged ones no ways binding the most zealous of his Holinesses Children nay rather as things that in a most abusive manner give the lye to the solemnest Discipline and Rights of holy Church For in no Action can his Holiness so clearly express his intention and power as in those of solemn Excommunications against Nations they being the most visible and publick demonstrations of his pretended Omnipotency in governing the Earth Now is it not more than Schismatical Insolence to affirm that his Holinesses Empire and the Church is so divided in it self as that one personal Act of his should positively contradict and give the lye to another as it must plainly do if he after the solemn Excommunication of a Nation shall during that censure send any Bull of Direction to guide the people thereof in their journey to Heaven whither he openly declares they never shall arrive having as much as in him lies sealed up the Gates of Glory to them For to this purpose or none tend all Excommunications which are pursuant to the promise of Binding and Loosing Therefore from this reason I gather that several things done and taught by the Jesuits and Missionary Priests here not only fall under Protestant Laws of Treason and Catholick National Laws of Praemunire but are also contrary to the Fundamental Rules and Practices of the Roman Catholick Church it self For an instance Indulgences given by his Holiness to the Catholick Church in general these are often published at Mass and in Sermons by Missionaries here and the means to obtain the benefits of them zealously pursued and performed by Catholicks Now allowing the utmost benefit to be really in them that ever Pardon-seller in Spain pretended yet to English Roman Catholicks they can be nothing worth for by that infallible power resides in the Church best exprest in lawful general Councils of which sort we all say the Council of Trent was I say by this infallible Power and in that Council is taught That the intention of the Agent is absolutely necessary to the performance or end of any Religious Action or the benefits to arise thereby Insomuch that the intention of the Priest directed to the contrary shall null or rather make absent the Sacrament of Baptism or any other Rite notwithstanding all Ceremonies necessary were performed Now if this be truly so as you and I nay all Roman Catholicks are bound to believe how much more will it operate in this trick of Indulgences which flow only from the Fountain of the Popes good pleasure and can certainly operate no farther than he intends them which cannot be to England or any English man they being put wholly out of his Fatherly care and protection by his grand Interdiction the best discovery of his intention that can be except when he expresses himself in a general Council Pardon this short digression concerning Indulgences it being only to illustrate this infallible Truth That these Indulgences or any other Bull in general or directed in particular to this Kingdom cannot be supposed to flow from the Popes intention since they so palpably are against his more solemn declared pleasure which he annually renews Nor ought any Roman Catholick here look on them but as the tricks of private Missionaries for their own advantage since they perfectly contradict not only the Laws of the Nation but the Fundamental Laws of the Romish Church it self We may indeed speak of Popes Bulls Brother as of Letters Patents obtained from Princes of course which though when according to Law are binding not only to Subjects but against themselves and Successors yet when they proceed contrary to the Fundamentals of their Government then are they of no value but in themselves void Mankind always in such cases supposing the Prince to be deceived in his Grant So stands the Case here Till his Holiness takes off the Excommunication of this Nation which is an effect of his plenitude of Power and accords with the Fundamentals of his Regiment no Bull sent hither ought to be taken notice of they being in themselves apparently void as well as contrary to the Laws of the Nation made in Catholick times near two hundred years before the Pope cast off it or it the Pope Bringing in a Bull to this Kingdom without the Kings leave being then made Praemunire which Law was for all that time complied with by very many and as we say Good Popes To sum up all it comes to this Things in themselves no sins cannot become such but by some lawful prohibition Going to Church in it self is no sin nor can it become so by the Popes Command to a Country in which he renounces all Power England is such a Country therefore till he or his Successors take off the Excommunication no Catholick is obliged to take notice of that or any other pretended Command sent from him hither but perfectly è contrà Therefore going to Church is lawful in England for Roman Catholicks But not to leave the point thus I begin to doubt extremely whether we are not obliged in Conscience to go to Church as the Law directs or at least when we omit it freely to pay the penalty For it is granted on all hands that a thing not malum in se may become malum prohibitum if commanded by lawful Authority which I hope none of us will deny the Government in England to be I 'm sure he that should would deserve the severest execution provided by the most sanguinary Law Now the Government of England requires all the Subjects thereof to meet together at such a time and such a place no matter where suppose it Salisbury Plain doth any man think he would deserve the protection thereof that should obstinately without lawful excuse refuse to come thither no certainly he would not only incur deservedly the penalty provided but speaking like Christians who are
wants only opportunity for Catholicks to renew all those bloody Stratagems against the State the Predecessors of the Refusers of that Oath did unsuccessfully attempt though we in our private discourses do never so much pretend to abhor them For when they reflect that few or none of us but hold the Pope can absolve us from any Oath we have or can take and that many of us resolve not to stand in need of that but to refuse all Oaths that should oblige us to the performance of our duty to the King how can such not having any violent propensity of love to us but believe that there is some damnable design lockt up in the breasts of such Refusers in which the others may close when it is ripe there being no more hold of them than of a wet Eel by the tail since an absolving Bull upon the Gates or for a need on the ruines of Pauls makes the Government and us as much strangers as if we never had seen one the other Now I protest when I have seriously reflected on ancient Popish Plots on some sorts of Tenets which we almost think Catholick as this of the Popes Power of Absolving from Oaths which Protestants believe nay and some Catholicks too means from Allegiance and on the obstinacy of us to refuse the Commands of the Law in things indifferent I say when I have reflected on these things without the prejudice given me by my Education I have wondred the Laws against us have not been more severe than they are nay that they almost suffered a people of whom they could have no more certainty in State-affairs and so apparently declared humble Servants to a Foreign Authority to live at all amongst them Now Brother I will not at all dispute the lawfulness in Religion to take the Oath of Allegiance since I know you have taken it and are not yet so absolutely bigotted to the Obedience of the spiritual Commands of your Ghostly Tyrant but that you be ready on requiring to do it again so that a discourse of that nature would be needless to you But for all that I will a little glance on that Proposition so generally accepted of the Popes having power to absolve at pleasure any person from an Oath he hath taken Now that he has undertook to do this is beyond contradiction and that several changes and revolutions in Affairs of the World both private and publick have thereupon happened is as plain But by what Authority he at first assumed that Power I believe is not and may be worth a rational Catholicks inquiring after that he may the better know how with a good Conscience that will hold test before the Popes Superiour at the last Tryal to demean himself in a Country whose Magistrates are of another Religion Now as a step towards this matter I will beg leave of his Holiness to believe there were men in the World and Governments too before there were Popes and that there were too amongst them certain Moral Rules by which they began continued and increased in the World Now no doubt amongst many others there were solemn Compacts confirmed by overt Acts which they accounted Sacred and whosoever after having entred into such Holy obligations did violently break them were by the rest of mankind either extirpated if dangerous or despised and never more trusted if weakly so perjur'd Now it will as certainly follow that new Accidents and Revolutions in Common-wealths or Families might make it morally necessary that the obligations lying upon one or many persons therein by such sacred tyes ought to be broke for the safety it is possible of the whole An observation of which Mankind soon found out Methods to distinguish persons so necessarily acting against those sacred tyes which we call Oaths from such as wilfully despised them That the first sort though breaking their Vows literally might be kept from the scandal and punishment of Covenant-breakers whilst the last should remain still under the lash of the Law or contempt of their fellow Creatures Humane Nature falling necessarily under these circumstances it was requisite to appoint or agree upon some Judgment which should be absolute in the point of determining when men were perjur'd by breaking their Vows and when not to which persons naturally would have recourse before they attempted the doing of it Now these Compacts Oaths or Vows were usually either in Temples with the assistance of the sacred Ministers made or at least sworn by the Deity or Deities to which such people were devoted and therefore Consultations concerning the necessity of altering those Resolutions were usually had with the chiefest of those Heavenly Officers and for this reason amongst some other Princes of large Kingdoms did in ancient time keep the chief Celestial Character united to the Regal For Experience shewed that men naturally seeking liberty began to pervert that obligation which Nature taught of omitting the performance of Vows extremely prejudicial to society into a belief that there resided a power in these Spiritual Judges of the necessity absolutely to absolve at their discretion any person they pleased So quickly the one through ambition of having such an Authority and the other finding a convenience to satisfie their loose appetites if they bribed the Possessors of this Divine good pleasure did almost acquiesce in this unreasonable belief that there was a Power delegated from Heaven to certain men which made them Gods below And that such persons had a power to make that at their good pleasure no sin which in it self if there be any good thing or bad must naturally be so This indeed was the general practice of the ancient World before Christianity insomuch that Moses the most Divine Law-giver amongst them did take it to himself though he is far from being commended for it by our Saviour when he speaks of the Jewish Priviledge or general Dispensation from one natural Oath which is Marriage that Moses was pleased by virtue of this Authority he assumed to himself to leave to that whole Nation For our Saviour plainly says this Power did not come from God but was assumed by Moses for the hardness of their hearts and that all that Dispensation notwithstanding to put away a Wife except for the case of Adultery which seems a natural dissolution of the compact was a sin So that I conclude Our Saviour who had almost as much Authority as the Pope never did pretend to any like that of making things in their own natures sinful to become none but taught that it was not in the power of Moses nor any man else to do it Then let us descend to times succeeding that fulness of it which produced the Redemption of Mankind S. Paul teaches sufficiently the necessity of keeping Vows and I do not find his Holinesses Predecessor S Peter very frequent with his Dispensations But leaving them and hastening to those Ages in which through the Piety of Christian Emperours the Popes had arrived to a
by running into perfect confusion which would quickly have produced its perfect extirpation So that Oaths of this kind were not invented to create but to keep in memory our duty And where upon great confusions in and alterations of a Common-wealth they have seemed to be otherways in such cases they will fall under the next Head Which are Compacts ratified by Oath for mutual convenience These no power on Earth neither ever could or had Authority to dispense with except by consent of all Parties to the Bargain or Agreement for to affirm the contrary would imply some one person still remaining in Mr. Hobbs State of Nature presiding over all his Leviathans who should not only have a right to every thing in the World but to break and dissolve all the Government of it at his pleasure and indeed to annihilate humane Nature it self But though no single person simply can have this Power of dispensing the performance of Compacts yet have the Compactors themselves the undoubted Right of releasing one the other without consultation of any person unconcerned in the World Yet have Popes not only in the first but likewise in the last often put in their fingers as particularly in the Hungarians fatal breach of solemn Faith to the which punishment visibly showr'd from Heaven on the perjur'd Army owned by many Catholick Divines almost as miraculous has sufficiently evidenced to the World what little confirmation above is of such impious and destructive Dispensations But when the Compactors themselves dispense one the other no body bogles or starts at the breach of the Oath as we see lately in Holland where the States General dispensed the Prince of Orange themselves and the Country of an Oath taken against State-Holders which I have not yet heard of any man so say was not lawful for them by mutual consent to do Though I know had it been a Popish Country there would have been some Fees expected at the Apostolick Chamber for his Holinesses unnecessary Dispensation Thus we see that Oaths in themselves dispensable are easily by the proper persons dispensed without the Authority of a heavenly Delegate who can never arrive to a greater Dominion rightfully in the matter than as a person whose discretion is proper to advise with and can only be that too to such as are pleased freely to think him so But as for the last branch of Religious Vows the Author or Prescriber of the form and fashion of the thing to which they swear may have power to absolve at discretion from the performance of it and I will not say but in our Church this may be the Popes Province which if he pleases to keep within he may but if he will be still medling without being called with other mens concerns let him for me but I fear it will be but to very little purpose Kings and Governours being now wiser than to be over aw'd too much by his Pragmatical censures Dear Brother think not I have treated thus long upon Vows and Dispensations to inform you or any man else in this Age who are wise enough without my help to know that all this boasted Power of the Popes to dispense men from Oaths or their Allegiance has no foundation in Reason or Religion and is only bolster'd up with Examples of the success of some former Bishops of Rome in their insolencies which way of arguing is just of the same Authority as if I should to prove the piety of High-way robbing tell you the story of the late famous Hind who living many years on that profession yet had the honour to dye for his Loyalty to his Prince and not as a Thief But passing all these things over I do conclude it is not only lawful to take the Oath of Allegiance but to keep it when we have done nay that we are obliged to do the last under pain of eternal damnation let the Pope say or dispense the contrary how he please And further I do affirm no rational man can prove the contrary sufficiently of the other Oath notwithstanding its Bugbear name of Supremacy Nay now he 's quite gone beyond recovery I am afraid you your self will say notwithstanding all brotherly affection and then you 'll go on in crying there was some hopes of recovering me to the Catholick Religion whilst I only pleaded for going to Church and the Oath of Allegiance but to say it is lawful to take that horrible terrible Oath of Supremacy shews me a confirmed Heretick ready to take the Test on the first opportunity for an Imployment But Brother I desire you to suspend your censure of damnation against me lest you prove as rash in it as the Pope was that first Excommunicated this whole Nation in Queen Elizabeth's time For no doubt he and several of his Successors since have in their minds secretly repented so inconsiderate an act though they will not acknowledge it by taking off that censure till some previous Action of the Nation requires it which I am not like to live to see My reason for this Supposition is one of the motives of my asserting the lawfulness for us of taking the Oath of Supremacy For what reason can there be for our refusing to do so since he refuses all spiritual Superiority over us and the King accepts it and in these two points consists the whole scope of this Oath It requires me to swear the Pope has no Authority over this Kingdom And if I will take his own honest word he has not nor will not have What can be better than his own most solemn Excommunication to prove it The next Point I am to swear is That the King is Head of all Persons and Affairs as well Ecclesiastical as Civil in these his Dominions which no person that hath his right wits I think can deny as the case now stands For if ever the Popes were Heads or Supreme in Ecclesiastical Affairs within this Nation they have long since by an Act of their own as well as of the Nations ceased to be so Therefore if any be it must be the King since the Law says so though it be worth inquiring as to this point how the Law means him Head of Ecclesiastical matters First I suppose it means Head of that Church and the Ecclesiastical Affairs therein that is established by Law For it cannot mean any other since we see a power of Dispensation contrary to Law for the most minute dissenters to meet in another Form of serving God has been controverted Not to say more of the point therefore if there must be but one Religion established and no other tolerated then the Law only intends him Head of that which the Pope himself will not deny him to be So I suppose I may lawfully swear him that which no other person ever did or can pretend to besides Now this matter having been excellently well treated of and handled in former times by some learned Casuists when the Intention of the Law in