Innocent X. He alone hath the right of calling Councils for Spiritual Affairs and to preside in them personally or by his Legates I say he hath that right without speaking of matter of Fact which is under debate in respect of some Councils and cannot prejudice his Primacy For though he hath not presided in the first Council of Constantinople which perhaps neither did he call and that it be most certain that he did not call the fifth nor presided in it though he was at Constantinople where that Council was held yet it is not to be doubted but he might have done both the one and the other if he had pleased seeing that in the Letter which the Patriarch Entychius wrote to him for obtaining of that Council Concil 5. Act. 1. he prayed him to preside in it and that he onely presided therein upon his refusal For thus it is in the Original praesidente nobis vestrâ beatitudine and not residente nobiscum as the Minister Junius hath corrupted it by a correction made of his own head against the clear sense of the following words Besides is it not past all controversie that the Pope presided by his Legates in the Council of Chalcedon as he hath done in almost all the others which have been held since For I speak not here of the great Council of Nice nor of that of Ephesus because as I conceive I have elsewhere proved by invincible Arguments not onely against our Protestants but also against the sentiments of some Catholick Doctours that the Popes by their Legates presided in them nay and that they called them as to what relates to the Spiritual Authority which they have over the Bishops as the Emperours to whose rights Kings and Christian Princes have succeeded may call Councils in regard of Temporals by that sovereign power which they have received from God over their Subjects in virtue whereof they may oblige their Bishops to assemble in a certain place either within or without their Territories there to treat of matters purely spiritual wherein they meddle not but as protectours of the Church in causing the Decrees and Canons of these Councils which strike not at the Rights of their Crown to be put in execution It is certain then that the Popes as Heads of the Church have right to call general Councils and to preside in them Moreover seeing the Pope in that quality Concil Sardic Can. 3.4.7 Gelas Epist ad Epis Dardan Innoc. Epist ad Victric St. Leo. Ep. 82. Cap. Car. Mag. lib. c. 187. Hincmar ad Nicol. 1. Flodo Hist Eccl. Rom. l. 3. Gerson de Protestant Eccl. Cons 8. is without dispute above every Bishop of what Dignity soever he may be and above all particular Churches and Synods Appeals may be made from all these Bishops and Synods to his Tribunal It belongs to him to judge of greater Causes such as those which concern the Faith and that are doubtfull universal Customs the deposing of Bishops and some others which I have observed elsewhere the decision whereof belongs and ought to be referred to him In that manner the Inferiour Judges appointed by Moses according to the advice of Jethro Exod. 18. judged of causes of less importance and the greater were reserved to that great leader of the People of God Hence it is also that the Pope hath right to judge yet always according to the disposition of the Canons of the causes of Bishops Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs This appears clearly by the judgment in the case of St. Athanasius Athan. Apol. 2. Theodoret. l. 2. Socr. l. 2. c. 15. Sozom. l. 3. c. 81. Paul Patriarch of Constantinople Marcellus Primate of Ancyra Asclepas Bishop of Gaza and Lucius Bishop of Adrianople whom Pope Julius restored to their Sees from which they had been illegally Deposed and by the case of Denis Patriarch of Alexandria who being accused Athan. de sent Dionys defended himself in writing before the Pope in a word by an infinite number of other instances in all ages of the Church which may be seen in my Treatise of the judgment of the causes of Bishops I shall onely mention one which wonderfully sets off that supreme Authority of the Pope After the death of Epiphanins Liberat. c. 10. Patriarch of Constantinople the Empress Theodora one of the wickedst Women that ever was and above all a great Eutychian in her heart and a great enemy to the Council of Chalcedon prevailed so far by the great power that she had got over the mind of the Emperour Justinian her Husband who could not resist her Artifices that Anthimius was made Patriarch though he was Bishop of Trebizonde by that means possessing at the same time two Episcopal Chairs against the manifest constitution of the holy Canons without any Precedent and without lawfull dispensation Besides that naughty man was both a frank Heretick and great Cheat. For though he was not onely Eutychian but also the head of those Hereticks Justin Nov. 42. Niceph. l. 17. c. 9. yet he always professed that he might deceive the Emperour who at that time was a good Catholick that he received the Doctrine of the four Councils but without ever condemning Eulyches who had been condemned by the holy Council of Chalcedon That occalioned a great deal of scandal and trouble in the East and seeing when matters were in this state Concil Constant sub Men. Act. 1. St. Agapetus the Pope was come from Rome to Constantinople whither Theodatus King of the Goths had obliged him to go that he might endeavour to obtain of Justinian the peace which the Goths demanded The Monks of Syria and many other zealous Catholicks presented him Petitions against that Intruder and Heretick This without doubt is one of the most illustrious marks and one of the strongest proofs of the Authority of the Holy See and of the Primacy of the Pope that ever was seen in the Church The Emperour who loved Anthimius and thought himself obliged in honour to protect him as being his Creature solicited on his behalf and by his earnestness in the Affair made it apparent that he intended to maintain him Theodora who was more concerned still than the Emperour in the preservation of her Patriarch employed all her Artifices and spared neither offers prayers nor threats to shake the constancy of a Pope whom she saw resolved to make use of the power which he had received from Jesus Christ for the good of the Church The Empire was then in a most flourishing state the Emperour shining in glory After the defeat of the Vandals in Africa Constantinople in great splendour Anthimius most powerfull through the favour of his Prince and the Grandeur and Majesty of the Patriarchal See of the Imperial City where he thought himself too well fixed to fear that he could be turned out Rome on the contrary being no more the Seat of the Empire since it was fallen under the Dominion of the Herules and
less to be rejected because I shall produce as Evidences for this Truth those who are most concerned in the Affair I need say no more but that the ancient Popes whom of late in spight of themselves they would have elevated above Councils do themselves protest that they are subject unto them and that they ought to obey them in matters belonging to Faith the Regulation of Manners the universal Good and general Discipline of the Church Is there any thing clearer and more sincere as to that Subject than the Testimony of Pope Syricius Successor to Damasus The Emperours Theodosius and Valentinian the younger Ann. 390. had called a great Council of the Eastern and Western Bishops at Capoua Ambros Epist ad Theoph. Alexand. Epist Syricii ad Anys Thessalon for quenching the Schism of Antioch which after the Death of Meletius and Paulinus still continued by the Election that the two different Parties of that Church made of Flavian to succeed to Meletius and of Evagrius Successor to Paulinus Seeing Flavian appeared not the Council delegated Theophilus of Alexandria to judge and determine that great difference with consent of the Bishops of Egypt and at the same time since the Council was informed against a Bishop of Macedonia called Bonosus accused of Heresie and Impiety against the holy Virgin who durst not appear the Council committed the Tryal of the Cause to Anesius of Thessalonica that he might determine it in a Synod which he should hold with the Bishops of Macedonia and Illyrium These whether to discharge themselves of the Judgment which they well foresaw they must of necessity pass against one of their Brethren Cum hujusmodi fuerit Concilii Capuensis Judicium ut finitimi Bonoso atque eâ—us accusatoribus Judices tribuerentur advertimus quod nobis Judicandi forma competere non possit Nam si integra esset bodie synodus recte de iiâ— quae comprehendit scriptorum vestrorum series decerneremus Vestrum est igitur qui hoc recepistis Judiâ—ium sententiam ferre di oâ—nibus vicem enim Synodi recepistis quos ad examinandum Synodus elegit Primum est uti ii judicent quibus judicandi faculias est data vos enim totius ut scripsimus Synodi vice decernitis nos quasi ex Synodi authoritate judicare non convenit or out of the Veneration that they had for the Holy See referred that Judgment to Pope Syricius But he wrote back to them that if the Council had determined nothing about the Cause of Bonosus he would have pronounced a just Judgment concerning what they had written to him of that Bishop but that since the Council had commissionated them to take Cognisance of that Cause by a decisive Judgment with the Bishop of Thessalonica he frankly confessed that he had no Power to judge of it It is you said he who are to supply the place of the Council in that Judgment and who received the Power to determine it to whom it belongs to pronounce about that Affair Epist Syricii ad Anys Thes in collect Roman bipertit veter monument Romae 1662. seeing you represent the Council which hath transferred its Authority upon you and not to me who have it not There is a Pope of the fourth Age who ingenuously confesses That the Delegates of the Council much more the Council it self have greater Power than he hath and who by consequent acknowledges that the Authority of Councils is above that of Popes Innocent I. who three Years after Syricius was Pope and who had observed his Conduct in relation to the Council of Capoua walked also according to the Tradition of the Roman Church Chrys Ep. ad Innoc 1. Ep. Inn. ad Jo. Chrys apud Sozom. l. 8. c. 26. Innoc. Episc ad cleric Constant Pallad dial de vit Chrysost c. 2. and the Example of his Predecessors who never thought that their Power was equal and far less superiour to that of a Council For in the great Persecution that Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria rais'd against St. John Chrysostom who was condemned and deposed in a Synod of Bishops of the Faction of Theophilus Theophili Judicium cassum irritum â—sse decrevit dicens oportâ—re conflare aliam iâ—repâ—ehensiâ—ilem Synodum occiâ—entalium sacâ—rdotum cedentibâ—s aâ—ciâ—is primun dâ—inde inimicis neutraâ—um quippe partiam ut plurimum â—ectum esse Judicium Pallad loâ— cit and Enemies to that Saint seeing the Pope and Western Bishops had been written to on both sides that holy Bishop did indeed rescind that Judgment past contrary to all the Forms and Rules of Councils by incompetent Judges against an Absent who had judicially appealed to a lawful Council but as to the Substance of the Affair and the Accusation in hand he would never meddle in it He thought that considering the Importance of the Affair wherein the Honour and Dignity of a Patriarch whose Faith had always been so pure and his Learning and eminent Sanctity in so high a Veneration over all the Church was struck at Quodnam remedium hisce rebus afferemus necessaria erit Synodalis cognitio nothing but an impartial Council wherein the Friends and Enemies of neither side should be present could pronounce a definitive Sentence concerning the matter Ea sola est quae hujusmodi procellarum impetus retardare potest Innoc. This he wrote to both Parties and in the Letters which he directs to St. Chrysostom to his Bishops and Clergy of Constantinople he says positively that that Council Cum opem ipse ferre non posset Pallad even the same to which that holy Patriarch had appealed was absolutely necessary for determining that great Affair by a supreme Sentence that there was no other Remedy but that for the Evils that afflicted them that he could not help them otherwise Multum deliberamus quonam modo synodus Oecumenica congregari possit per quam c. Expectemus igitur vallo patientiae communiti c. that an Oecumenical Council alone could restore Peace to the Eastern Church and calm so furious a Tempest and that in the mean time it behoved them to arm themselves with Patience and have recourse only to God expecting till that Council should be called wherein he laboured incessantly searching out the Measures that might be taken for having it called Could that Pope express himself in clearer terms that a general Council hath an higher power and of larger Extent than his own and that by consequent it is above him However if I mistake not there is somewhat that strikes higher in what Innocent III. one of his Successors no less zealous than he was for the Grandeur and Rights of the Holy See wrote to Philip August This Prince who had a great desire to have the Marriage which he had contracted with the Queen Ingerbuge dissolved instantly pressed the Pope to declare it null that so he might be free to marry another That wise Pope writing back to
the Spirit of God hath made and which are consecrated by the Veneration of all the World and the Decrees of the Apostolick See which are not contrary to these Canons Ex Art Concilii Florent è Sesi 25. Antiq. Eâ—ition cum aâ—â—rob Clement VII And that is the very same that was defined in the Council of Florence after long debate betwixt the Latins and Greeks concerning the primacy and power of the Pope in the Universal Church It was agreed upon on both sides That the Pope as Successor of St. Peter was Head of the Church the Father and Teacher of all Believers who had received from Jesus Christ in the person of St. Peter full power to govern the Church The difficulty only rested in expressing the manner how he might and ought to govern it The Latins would have the Definition run thus That he had above all others the priviledge and full power of governing the whole Church according to the Sayings and Sentences of the holy Fathers Juxta determinationem sacrae Scripturae dicta sanctorum The Emperour John Paleologue and Greek Prelates An siquis inquit sanctorum in Epistola honoret Papam accipiet hoc pro Privilegio vigorously oppos'd that Clause dicta sanctorum How said he if any of the Holy Fathers writing to the Pope says to him what he thinks fit for rendering him greater Respect and more Honour shall the Pope take these Expressions of Complement and Civility for Priviledges that belong to him Besides in the draught of the Bull of Union of the two Churches the Pope having only put his own name Eugenius Bishop Servant of the Servants of God as if he alone had made these Decrees the Emperour and the Greeks would by all means have that amended and that there should no mention be made of the Pope in it unless the other Patriarchs were also named At length after that these two considerable Clauses had been well examinâ—d the Union was made in the manner that the Greeks desired it to which the Latins agreed Then the Bull was framed which began thus Eugenius Servant of the Servants of God c. Our death beloved Son John Paleologue illustrious Emperour of the Romans those who hold the place of our venerablâ— Brethren the Patriarchs and all the rest who represent the Eastern Church consenting to all the Decrees which anâ— in this Bull c. And then amongst other Articles it was defined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 mâ—dâ—m qui in â—â—â—tiâ— conciâ—iâ—â—â— in canonibus conâ—â—â— That Jesus Christ hath given to the â—ope in the person of St. Peter full power to govern the Universal Church in the manner as is contained both in the Acts of Oecumenical Councils and in the sacred Canons and not according to the false Translation Quemadmodum etiam in gestis Conciliorum c. as if it were said that the Canons of Councils attribute also to the Pope the power of governing the Universal Church It is a quite contrary Sense to the Words of the Council which says only that the Pope hath received from Jesus Christ the power of governing the Church in the manner as is prescribed to him by the Canons Juxta eum modum qui in gestis Conciliorum in Canonibus continetur Which comprehends all because it is supposed as it is very true that the Canons of Oecumenical Councils are conform to holy Scripture Tradition and the true Sayings of the holy Fathers from whom we derive our Tradition From those two Clauses of the Bull wherein both the Eastern and Western Churches after they had well examined them agreed two things may be unquestionably concluded the one that the Pope can determine nothing in his Constitutions of infallible Authority without the Consent of the Church and the other that the Exercise of his power which is not infinite and unlimited ought to be moderated according to the Rules prescribed to him by the Canons of the Councils to which all Believers are subject What the Popes have over others is the Care they ought to take to see them observed not only by their Authority but by their Example which is of greater force and efficacy than their Ordinances and if they themselves violate them acting arbitrarily as they please without regard to the Canons which ought to be their measures or suffer them to be violated by others without punishment they become culpable before God who hath made them not the Masters but the Stewards of the Church to act according to her Orders and cause them to be obeyed This the great St. Leo expressed admirably well in those rare words which he wrote to the Emperour Martian With the Assistance of Jesus Christ I must constantly continue my Service In quo opere auxiliante Christo fideliter exequendo necesse est me perseverantem exhibere famulatum quoniam dispensatio mihi credita est ad meum reatum tendit si paternarum regulae sanctionum quae in Synodo Nicenâ ad totius Ecclesiae regimen spiritu Dei instruente sunt conditae me quod absit connivente violentur Ep. 54. ad Martian Dum tamen evidens utilitas vel necessuas id expoâ—cunt Greg. IX In talibus eadem utilitas urgens necessitas secundum instituta canonum debet attendi Innoc. III. Ep. ad Episc Favent in faithfully executing what I am commanded because he has trusted me with the Care and Dispensation of his House and I make my self guilty of great Vnfaithfulness if by my Connivance which God preserve me from I suffer the Rules and Canons to be violated which have been made by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost in the Council of Nice for the Government of the whole Church Not but that the Pope who ought to take the care of the general Good of the Church may on certain Occasions dispense with the Canons but in that thing it self he is subject to the Canons seeing he cannot dispense with them as he pleases and without any other reason save that of his Will but only in Cases prescribed by the Canons when urgent necessity Vbi necessitas non est inconvertibilia maneant sanctorum patrum institâ—ta Gelas Vbi necessitas non est nullo modo violentur sanctorum patrum constituta St. Leo. or manifest advantage makes it appear according to the Canons that the Church intended not to oblige to them Except in such cases the ancient Popes say openly that the Canons and holy Decrees must be inviolably kept and that they cannot dispense with them Whereupon St. Bernard writing to a Pope Quid Prohibes dispensare non sed dissipare c. ubi necessilas urget excu abilis diâ—pensatio est ubi utilitas provâ—cat dispensatio laudabilâ—s est utilitas dico con munu non propria nam cum borum nih lâ— est non plane fideâ—is dâ—â—sheâ—satio est sed câ—â—eussima dissipation Bern. de cons ad Eugen
People except a very few who still adhered to the Schismaticks Martin V. who was chosen Pope in place of John XXIII in the forty fifth Session approved the Decrees which had solemnly been made in that Council and protested that he would observe them inviolably In fine in the Bull wherein he enjoyns what is to be asked of Hereticks who return from their Heresie amongst others this Article is put Whether they believe not that all Believers ought to approve and hold what the holy Council of Constance representing the Vniversal Church holds and approves for the Integrity of the Faith and the Salvation of Souls and whether they condemn not and repute not condemned what the same holy Council hath condemned and condemns as contrary to the Faith and good Manners This without doubt is one of the most authentick Approbations that a Pope can give to a Council Now seeing in compliance with a Decree of this Council the Pope had called another at Pavia afterward at Sienna and lastly at Basil where it was held fourteen Years after that of Constance under Eugenius IV. who caused the Cardinal Julian of St. Angelo named by his Predecessor for that Function to preside in it in his place that Council in the second Session when without contradiction it was very lawful the Pope presiding therein by his Legate renewed those two Decrees and defined the same thing in the same terms touching the Superiority of General Councils to which Popes were obliged to submit in matters concerning the Faith the extinction of Schism and the Reformation of the Church in its Head and Members This was not all for sometime after Eugenius having sent the Archbishops of Colossis and Taranto to the Council to represent the Reasons and Authority that he had to dissolve it and to transfer it to another place The Fathers in a general Assembly made a Synodal Respons Synod Sess 6. Answer by way of Constitution containing more than twenty four large Pages wherein having refuted all the Reasons whereby one of these Archbishops would have proved the Superiority of the Pope over a Council Septemb. 1432. they on the contrary evince by many Reasons and by the Authority of the Council of Constance and of the Gospel which remits St. Peter to the Church that the Council which represents her hath all her Authority and again define once more that the Council is above the Pope However Eugenius dissolved it contrary to the Advice of Cardinal Julian who presided therein But when he perceived that that began to produce very bad Effects Ann. 1433. he made the Year following a new Constitution whereby annulling and rescinding all that he had done for dissolving it Illas alias quascunque quicquid per nos aut nestro nomine in praejudicium derâ—gationem sacri Concilii B siliensis seu contra ejus authoritatem factum attentatum seu assertum est cassamus revocamus nullas irritas esse declaramus that that Council had lawfully continued till then from the Beginning and approves whatever had been done in it even so far as to declare null certain Constitutions in one whereof he declared that in matters belonging to the Government of the Church he had power over all Councils And that was so authentick and solemn that Pius II. even in the Bull of his Retractation ingenuously confesse that Pope Eugenius consented to the Decrees of that Council Accessit iâ—sias Eâ—gâ—nit consenâ—us qui dissolutionem Conâ—â—â—ii à se sactam revocavit progressam eâ—â—e approbavit approved its progress and continuation and recalled the Bull whereby he had dissolved it There are two Councils then without speaking of that of Pisa whereof the Council of Constance was a continuation and two Councils in formal terms approved by two Popes Martin V. and Eugenius IV. and these Councils determine the one during the Schism and the other after the Schism was extinct that every Council representing the Universal Church is superiour to the Pope Now all the Doctors of that party which hold for the Pope's Superiority acknowledge that a Council universal and approved cannot err in its Decisions whence it may easily be concluded that since the Decrees of these Councils one is obliged to believe what all Antiquity before these Councils believed that is that an Oecumenical Council lawfully assembled is above the Pope I don't see how one can avoid this without finding ways to invalidate the Authority of the Councils and particularly of that of Constance which is held for the sixteenth General Council And this a modern Author hath attempted to do in a Book written on purpose and last Year printed at Antwerp by John Baptista Verdussen We are now to see how he hath succeeded in it CHAP. XXII Of the Writing of the Sieur Emmanuel Schelstrate against these two Decrees of the Council of Constance THree years since Ann. 1682. Cleri Gallicani de Ecclesiasticâ potestate declaratio the Clergy of France representing the Gallican Church being by Order of the King assembled at Paris made an authentick Declaration in four Articles of what they believe and define concerning Ecclesiastical Power conform to the Holy Scriptures Tradition and the practice of the whole Church and particularly of that of France Amongst other things they declare in the second Article That the Popes Successors of St. Peter have in such manner full power over the spiritual That the Decrees of the holy Council of Constance approved by the Holy Apostolick See and contained in the fourth and fifth Session concerning the Authority of General Councils must also remain in their full force and not at all be infringed And they add That the Gallican Church approves not the Opinion of those who would weaken these Decrees and rob them of all their force saying that their Authority may be called in question that they are not sufficiently approved or that they extend not beyond the time when there is a Schism in the Church Doubtless there is nothing more authoritative and at the same time more modest than that Declaration of a Church so venerable in all Ages as the Gallican hath been and which next to that of the Apostles hath always maintained and made the Catholick Faith to flourish in France in its full Integrity without having been ever suspected of the least Error Nevertheless there is a late Writer to wit the Sieur Emmanuel Schelstrate Canon of Antwerp and Under-Library-keeper of the Vatican who as he declares at first in the Scheme of his Dissertation undertakes to overthrow all that the Clergy of France hath asserted concerning these Decrees and to shew in three Chapters first that one may and ought rationally to doubt of their Authority secondly that it is only to be understood during the time of a Schism and in regard of controverted Popes and lastly that they are so far from being approved that they have been manifestly rejected by an express Bull. Now
Pope We maintain that it signifies there according to the absolute will of the Pope We maintain that it signifies there According to the advice and counsel of the Pope which is plainly to be seen by the opposition of these words ad nutum Sacerdotis ad jussum Imperatoris which signifie two different things that the Soldiers take Arms by the command of the Emperor ad Jussum and by the advice of the Pope ad nutum It cannot be said that that is by the command otherwise St. Bernard would have said briskly ad Jussum Sacerdotis Imperatoris but he makes a distinction and for the one saies ad Jussum and for the other ad nutum by the counsel and advice Just so as it is said of the Disciples in the Gospel Annuerunt sociis qui erunt in alia navi They beckoned to their companions that were in the other Ship that annuerunt beckoned does not signifie a command but an advice an exhortation They pray them to come So that ad nutum which comes from the same verb annuere means nothing more but the advice counsel and exhortation of the Pope as Vrban II. exhorted the Emperor and all Christian Princes to cross themselves and to take Arms against the Sarasins for rescuing the Holy Sepulchre And as we see at present that Pope Innocent XI exhorts all the Potentates of Europe to League against the Turk and sends Money to the Emperor and King of Poland to carry on the War in Hungary against that common Enemy of all Christians It will not be said for all that that the Pope commands these Princes to employ the material Sword all that can be said of it is that the Germans and Polanders make good use of their Swords in Hungary and beat the Turks ad nutam Sacerdotis ad Jussum Imperatoris by the counsel and exhortation of the Pope and by the command of the Emperor and the King of Poland But to prove to these new Doctors that that is the true sense of St. Bernard I 'll only object to them the same Saint in the same Treatise of Consideration to Pope Eugenius wherein doubtless it will not be said that he hath contradicted himself by overthrowing in one place what he hath built up in another For in this manner he speaks to the Pope upon what our Saviour three or four times told his Apostles that he would not have them to be like the Kings of the Gentiles that bear Rule over their Subjects It is plain saith that Holy Man that all Dominion is forbidden to the Apostles Planum est Apostolis interdicitur dominatus ergo tu tibi usurpare aude aut dominans Apostolatum aut Apostolicus dominatum plane ab alterutro prohiberis aut si utrumque similiter habere voles utrumque perdes l. 2. de cons c. 6. Go then boldly and usurp the Apostleship either by domineering or Dominion by retaining the Apostleship From one of the two you are excluded If you think to retain both you shall lose both Are these the words of a Man that would have Popes so far to domineer over Kings as to depose them and transfer their Crown to others seeing he will not so much as have them to have any Dominion Not that he finds fault that Eugenius III. as other Popes have had should enjoy Lands and Principalities and those vast demains which they hold of the liberality of the Kings of France and which by the favour of times they have since converted into Sovereign and independent States Grant Esse ut aliâ quâcunque ratione haec tibi vindices sed non Apostolico Jure nec enim ille Petrus tibi dare qâ—od non habuit potuit adds St. Bernard that you have that Temporal Dominion by any other title but I declare you have it not as Pope nor by any right of Apostleship for St. Peter who had no such thing could not give what he had not So that Popes as Popes have no other Power but what is purely Spiritual for binding or loosing Souls and have nothing to do with the Temporal of the meanest of Christians much less with that of Kings After this I am not of the mind that the new Doctors will be found of alledging to us the words of St. Bernard nor indeed be able to oppose any considerable Authority to that of all the Ancient Fathers since Bellarmin himself in the Treatise that he made of the Power of the Pope as to Temporals against William Barclay produces only for justifying his Opinion the Authors of the last four or five hundred years What can all these upstarts do against the Fathers of the Ancient Church It is enough to send them packing to tell them once more what Pope Celestin I. said Desinat novitas incessere vetustatem But because we speak with a Pope and that the question in Hand concerns the intetest of all Sovereign Popes let us now see what the Belief of the Ancient Popes hath been as to the same Point CHAP. XXIX The Judgment of Ancient Popes touching the Power over Temporals that some Doctors of late times attribute to the Pope THESE of all Men are evidences of greatest Authority and least to be rejected seeing the question is about a Power that some would attribute to them and which they openly declare they have not I mean Ancient Popes who for most part were great Saints and who very well understanding their obligation have always kept within the bounds of that Spiritual Power which they have received from Jesus Christ for Governing his Church according to the Laws and Canons of Ecumenical Councils so as the Council of Florence defined it The truth is they were so far from attempting any thing upon the Temporal of Emperors and Kings tho even Infidels and Hereticks as to deposing of them and absolving their Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance that they had taken to them that they have always openly protested that they were wholly submitted unto them as most humble Subjects and have acknowledged as well as the great Osius that distribution which God hath made of the Temporal for Sovereigns and of the Spiritual for the Church for the Popes and Bishops There is nothing more evident than this in Ecclesiastical History We need only read the Epistle of Pope Gelasus I. to the Emperor Anastasius wherein he makes that distinction of the two Powers one Temporal and the other wholly Spiritual and both independent one of another That of Nicolas I. to the Emperor Michael wherein he distinguishes them Actibus propriis dignitatibus distinctis by their Dignities and proper Functions which are of two quite different kinds and what Gregory II. wrote to Leo Isauricus a most wicked Arch-heretick and cruel Persecuter of Catholicks saying to him in one of his Letters In the same manner as the Pope has no Power of inspecting the Palace of Emperors Quemadmodum Pontifex introspiciendi in Palatium poteftatem
little longer to live and who according to my Profession can contribute nothing to your Conquests but by my ardent Prayers I shall reckon my self most happy and shall die content if I can but joyn a little by my Pen to those which you daily Atchieve for enlarging the Empire of the Church by the Conversion of Hereticks which by most soft and efficacious ways you procure And if by my Writings and particularly by this I can make it known to all the World as I hope I may that I am as true a Catholick as a good French Man and that I will die as I have lived SIR Your Majesties Most Humble most Obedient and Faithful Subject and Servant LOUIS MAIMBOURG A TABLE OF The Chapters and of their Contents CHAP. I. The design and draught of this Treatise and the Principle upon which it moves THE true Church is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ The definition thereof It s unity in the multitude of particular Churches which make but one Episcopacy and one Chair by the communion they have with a chief Church which is the center of their Vnity Antiquity is to be followed against Novelty in Doctrin that is contrary to it Vpon this Principle it is proved in this Treatise against the new Opinions what Antiquity hath believed of the first Foundation and Prerogatives of that chief Church which is the Church of Rome Page 1. CHAP. II. Of the Foundation and Establishment of the Church of Rome That St. Peter hath been at Rome A Refutation of the Erroneous reasons that some Protestants alledge for overthrowing that Truth St. Luke hath omitted a great many other things which notwithstanding are true The true Chronology which agrees with the progress and coming of St. Peter to Antioch and Rome against the wrong Chronology contrived to subvert it There were Christians at Rome when St. Paul arrived there All Antiquity hath believed that St. Peter was at Rome The Extravagance of those who have said that the Fathers were mistaken in taking the Country of Rome or Romania for the City of Rome Page 15 CHAP. III. That the Church of Rome hath been founded by St. Peter that he was the first Bishop of it and that the Popes are his Successors in that Bishoprick THAT truth acknowledged by all Antiquity In what sense Bishops sit in St. Peter's Chair and are his Successors and how Popes are in another manner Page 31 CHAP. IV. Of the Primacy of St. Peter and that he hath been established by Jesus Christ Head of the Universal Church THE true interpretation of these words Thou art Peter and upon that Rock will I build my Church How the Church is built upon Jesus Christ upon the confession of his Divinity and on the person of St. Peter His Primacy of Jurisdicton over all Believers proceeds from the confession of Faith which he made for all the rest All Antiquity hath acknowledged that Primacy of St. Peter and of all his Successors in the Bishoprick of Rome Page 37 CHAP. V. Of the Rights and advantages that the Primacy gives to the Bishop of Rome over other Bishops WHAT the Council of Florence decided as to that The superintendence of the Pope over all that concerns the Government and good of the Church in General The right he hath of calling Councils for the Spiritual and presiding in them That appeals may be made to his Tribunal and that he ought to judge of greater causes An illustrious instance of that Supreme Authority of the Pope in the History of Pope Agapetus of the Patriarch Anthimius and the Emperor Justinian The prodigious Ignorance of Calvin in Ecclesiastical History The System of his Heresie quite contrary to the Doctrin of Antiquity What are the Prerogatives of Popes that are disputed amongst Catholicks Page 51 CHAP. VI. The state of the Question concerning the Infallibility of the Pope WHether or not when he defines without a Council and without the consent of the Church he may err p. 72 CHAP. VII What Antiquity hath concluded from that that St. Peter was reproved by St. Paul WHether St. Peter was blame-worthy His action is called an error by St. Austin The opinion of St. Jerome refuted by that holy Doctor He compares the Error of St. Cyprian with that of St. Peter The History of the Error of Vigilius in regard of the three Chapters and his change compared by Pelagius II. with the Error and change of St. Peter The Schism of the Occidentals founded upon the constitution of Vigilius According to Pope Pelagius for quenching that Schism the Holy See is to be followed in its change as believers were obliged to imitate St. Peter in that which he made from evil to good St. Paul believed not St. Peter to be infallible It was before the Council of Jerusalem that St. Peter was reproved by St. Paul The true interpretation of that passage I have prayed for thee Peter that thy faith fail not p. 77 CHAP. VIII What follows naturally from the great contest of Pope Victor with the Bishops of Asia DIfferent customs in the Church concerning the celebration of Easter and of the Fast before that Feast The good intelligence betwixt Pope St. Anicetus and St. Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna notwithstanding the diversity of their customs The Decree of Pope Victor rejected by Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus and by the other Asiaticks St. Ireneus in name of the Gallican Church opposes Pope Victor None of these Bishops of the East and West believed the Pope to be infallible p. 103 CHAP. IX What ought to be inferred from the famous debate that was betwixt the Pope St. Stephen and St. Cyprian concerning the Baptism of Hereticks WHAT was the Judgment of St. Cyprian in that question and what was that of St. Stephen Councils held thereupon on both sides The Decrees of the one and other quite contrary St. Stephen cuts off from his Communion the Bishops that would not submit to his Decree Neither these Bishops nor St. Cyprian did for all that change their opinion and practice It was also permitted long after the death of St. Cyprian to maintain the same opinion and to follow the same conduct The Holy Fathers who held a Doctrin contrary to the Decree of the Pope St. Stephen What the great Council of Arles Nice and Constantinople have decided as to that question All then except the Donatists submitted to the Decrees of these Councils because they were believed to be Infallible which was not thought of Popes p. 111 CHAP. X. The fall of Liberius HIS Letters published in all places wherein he condemns St. Athanasius suppresses the term Consubstantial receives the Arians to his Communion and subscribes the Formulary of Sirmium He is for that deposed by the Church of Rome p. 135 CHAP. XI The instance of Pope Vigilius THE constitution of that Pope for the three Chapters The fifth Council which is Infallible condemns them p. 140 CHAP. XII The condemnation of Honcrius in the sixth Council THE
History of Monothelism Pope Honorius willing to agree both parties writes Letters to Patriarch Sergius which the Monothelites made use of for Authorising their Heresie The Popes John IV. Theodore and St. Martin follow a contrary conduct to his The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus with consent of Pope Agatho calls the sixth Council The History of that Council The Letters of Sergius and Honorius are examined there They are condemned of Heresie and that Pope is Anathematised He is also condemned in the Emperors Edict in the Letter of Leo II. to the Emperor In the Ancient diurnal Book of Rome in the Ancient Breviaries and in the VII and VIII Councils Convincing Arguments that the Acts of the sixth Council have not been falsified and that it cannot be said that the Fathers of that Council understood not well the meaning of Honorius All Antiquity which hath received that Council as we have it hath believed that the Pope is not infallible p. 143 CHAP. XIII Of the Popes Clement III. Innocent III. Boniface VIII and Sixtus V. THE Error of Clement in his Decretal Laudabilem recalled by Innocent III. The Error of Innocent concerning the secret of Confession He condemns that Error in the Council of Lateran That of Boniface in his Bull unam Sanctam recalled at the Council of Vienna That of Sixtus V. in the Edition of his Bible A ridiculous Answer of some Moderns p. 165 CHAP. XIV The instance of John XXII WHAT he did for Establishing his Error concerning the beatifick vision The sacred Faculty of Paris declares the Doctrin of that Pope heretical It had been condemned by Clement IV and was since in the Council of Florence King Philip of Valois obliges that Pope to recant p. 173 CHAP. XV. The tradition of the Church of Rome as to that THE Popes themselves have acknowledged that for ending difference in Religion by a Sovereign and infallible sentence there was a necessity of a Council The Heresies which Popes have condemned without a General Council have been so condemned by the consent of the Church Popes who have confessed that they had not the gift of Infallibility p. 179 CHAP. XVI The state of the question concerning the Superiority of the Council over the Pope or of the Pope over a Council WHether after a Council is lawfully Assembled the Pope being present in it or not that Council has or has not Supreme Authority over the Head as well as over the other Members of the Church or whether or not all its Authority depends on the Pope p. 187 CHAP. XVII That it is the Holy Ghost which in the definitions of Faith pronounces by the mouth of the Council WHAT is to be concluded from that Principle What it is according to the Doctrin of Antiquity to approve and confirm a Council p. 190 CHAP. XVIII That the Ancient Councils have examined the Judgments of Popes to give a last and definitive sentence upon them THE History of the Patriarch Flavian and the Pope St. Leo who submits his Judgment to that of a General Council An instance of the fifth Council that rescinds a sentence solemnly pronounced by the Pope and of the sixth which examines the sentences of Martin I. and Honorius I. approves the one and rejects the other The History of Constantine of the Donatists and of the first Council of Arles which examines the sentence given by Pope Melchiades in his first Council of Rome p. 199 CHAP. XIX That the Ancient Popes have always acknowledged and protested that they were subject to Councils THE History of Pope Sicicius and of the Council of Capona Of St. Leo in the case of St. Chrysostom against the Patriarch Theophilus Of Innocent III. in the case of the Marriage of Philip the August Instances of Pope St. Agapetus and Silvester II. p. 213. CHAP. XX. That the Ancient Popes have believed that they were subject to the Canons PRoofs of this from the conduct and protestations of the Popes Celestin I. St Leo St. Martin St. Gregory the Great John VIII Eugenius III. and Silvester II. What the Council of Florence hath defined as to that The true sense of these words against a false interpretation that hath been made of them Popes are obliged to govern the Church according to the Canons In what case they can dispense with them That they may abuse their Power Of an Appeal to a Council and of an Appeal as abusive to a Parliament p. 225 CHAP. XXI What General Councils have decided as to that Point THE History of the Council of Pisa where that question was first canvassed The debates that arose upon that Subject in the Council of Constance which is a continuation of that of Pisa The Decrees of that Council of Constance and of that of Basil upon the same Point The approbation of these Decrees by the Popes Martin V. and Eugenius IV. p. 241 CHAP. XXII Of the Writing of the Sieur Emmanuel Schelstrate against the two Decrees of the Council of Constance THE Declaration which the Clergy of France met in the Year 1682. made of their Opinion touching these two Decrees which they hold to be of infallible Authority approved by Popes and for those times when there is no Schism as well as during a Schism The Sieur Emmanuel Schelstrate undertakes to refute these three Articles in the three Chapters of his Dissertation p. 256 CHAP. XXIII A Refutation of the first Chapter of the Dissertation of M. Schelstrate THE Decree of the fourth Session hath not been falsified by the Fathers of Basil The Manuscripts of M. Schelstrate are defective and ours are true A demonstration of this Truth by two Sermons of John Gerson who rehearses that Decree before the whole Council of Constance word for word as we have it The Manuscripts by which these two Sermons have been reviewed and the other places were Gerson relates the same Decree An other demonstration of that truth by Pope Eugenius IV. and even by the Manuscripts of M. Schelstrate That question was sufficiently examined The Council consisted of the greatest and soundest part of the three obediences and the absence of others hinders not the Council from being lawful p. 261 CHAP. XXIV A Refutation of one of the two other Chapters of M. Schelstrate PRoofs of the approbation of these two Decrees of Constance The true interpretation of that word Conciliariter The abuse that may be made of the Appeal to a Council is condemned but not the Appeal it self All the Authority of Councils proceeds not from the Pope but chiefly from the Catholick Church p. 297 CHAP. XXV A Refutation of the other Chapter of M. Schelstrate THese two Decrees of the Council of Constance are for all times whilst there was a Schism and when there is none An Ecumenical Council is a whole whereof the Pope is but a part The Pope is the Head but not the Master of the Church The difference betwixt the Power of Popes and of Kings An authentick act of the Superiority of a
Goths retained now nothing that was great besides its own ruines and name The Church of Rome Tyrannically opprest by these Barbarians was if I dare say so in the chains of the Ostrogoths who used it like a slave The Pope forced to comply under the haughty commands of Theodatus who sent him to negotiate his affairs in the East so little esteemed by that Barbarian and so poor that he was obliged to sell the Plate of his Church to raise money for this Voyage was almost all alone at Constantinople without a Court without Cardinals without Train without Equipage without support and onely upheld by his spiritual power which was not backed by any of those glorious marks that at present renders the Pontifical Majesty so venerable to all the world Nevertheless in that condition he pronounces two thundering sentences against the Patriarch Anthimius Con. sub Men. Act. 4. Marcell in Chron. Liber in Brev. c. 2. Vict. Tun. in Chron. one upon the spot whereby by reason of his manifest intrusion he deposes him from his Patriarchship and puts the Priest Mennas in his place whom he himself consecrated Bishop and Patriarch of Constantinople and the other shortly after for the Crime of Heresie of which he was strongly suspected guilty ordaining that if he cleared himself not of it by obeying the holy Canons he should also be deposed from his Bishoprick of Trabizonde And seeing the holy Pope died the same year that sentence was the year following put in execution in a Council held by Mennas at Constantinople Anno 537. where because Anthimius would never condemn Eutyches Concil sub Men. Act. 4. he was deprived of the Bishoprick of Trabizonde and of all sacerdotal Dignity according to the sentence of the Pope And which is still more wonderfull Justinian acknowledging that Supreme Authority of the Pope to which he submitted and joyning thereto his own as Protectour of the Canons for causing that to be put in execution made against Anthimius that famous constitution which is to be seen in his two and fourtieth Novel in the tenth collation of his Authenticks wherein he positively says that he hath been justly Deposed by the Pope as well because he had intruded Neque ipse abdicare auctores impiorum dogmatum qui prius à Sanctis Synodis percussi fuerant Inst Nov. 42. contrary to the Holy Canons into the Chair of Constantinople as that he would not condemn those who had been Condemned by Councils Was there ever a more admirable effect of the Spiritual Power and Authority of the Vicar of Jesus Christ But before I conclude I must upon occasion of this Council of Constantinople under Mennas shew the Prodigious ignorance of Calvin in relation to the History of the Ancient Church I have said in the History of Calvinism and I say it again that that man having never entered the Schools of Divinity understood nothing at all in that Sacred Science which is a Key absolutely necessary for unlocking the sentiments and sentences of the Holy Fathers that contain the Principles of true Theology as they are to be found in a lovely order in the Master of Sentences But it is to be confessed that his ignorance appears incomparably more pitifull when he undertakes to prove his new Opinions by Church History in which he was never versed Take this as an evident proof of it This Innovatour who strikes chiefly at the Primacy of the Pope says in that place for overthrowing it Calvin Inst l. 4. c. 7. that Mennas presided in the fifth Council and that the Pope being called to it did not contest with him about the place of Honour but without difficulty suffered the Patriarch of Constantinople to preside therein Ridiculous mistake Mennas was dead long before the fifth Council was called which was held in the Seven and twentieth year of the Empire of Justinian as Calvin Consil 6. Act. 3◠had he ever read the Councils might have learned from the sixth Ecumenick Council third Action How then could that dead man have presided in that Council which was not held till five or six years after his death under his Successour Eutychius Now if it be alledged for excuse of that mistake that Calvin by that Council means the other which was held by Mennas yet that makes him but still ridiculous For besides that that particular Council is very different from that which is called the Fifth and which holds that rank amongst the General Councils the onely Pope that was at Constantinople in the time of Mennas to wit St. Agapetus was dead before that Council wherein Mennas calls him Act. 4. his Father of holy and blessed memory And had that Pope been still alive How durst Mennas have pretended to the first place in his presence he whom that Pope had made Patriarch who protests in the same Council that he is subject to the Holy See and who knows the thoughts of the Emperour Justinian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cod. l. 7. that declares publickly That the Pope is the Head of all the holy Prelates of God and who will have his Patriarch of New Rome to have the next place to the holy Apostolick See of Old Rome Novel 131. So that to what side soever Calvin turn he shall always find his Man dead in stead of alive And as it is very well known that God favour'd him not with the gift of working Miracles he can never raise him again to place him there where nothing but his extreme ignorance could put him By the same defect of knowledge accompanied with a ridiculous boldness that he may strip the Pope of his Primacy he takes Nice in Thracia for Nicoea in Bithynia Pope Julius for Silvester the first place for the last in citing Sozomene who beginning by this Man L. 1. c. 16. in the enumeration of the Patriarchs ascends in order to the first where he puts the Legats of the Pope speaking of the first Council wherein by the grossest ignorance that can be in History and which none but Calvin could be capable of he makes Saint Athanasius preside who was then but a simple Deacon waiting upon Alexander his Patriarch at that Council Athan. Apol. 2. Such was the ignorance of the head of our Protestants in Ecclesiastical History I do not at all wonder at it for that was none of his study But I am astonished to see that men of wit and learning dance to his Pipe in that they implicitely assent to his ignorance in Antiquity when in the systeme of his heresie he rejects matters that are manifestly authorised by Tradition and History which is the Court of Record of it nay even when he traces it back to the Primitive Ages of the Church wherein they are forced to confess that it was in its purity There are evident proofs of this in the History of the Fathers and Councils where setting aside some frivolous superstitions of weak people which we
the Pope was infallible The same may be said of the Bull of Sixtus V. which he caused to be printed with his Bible and whereby he declares to the whole Church That that Bible is corrected according to the Primitive Purity of the Vulgar Translation And nevertheless because it was afterwards clearly seen that it was not Clement VIII suppressed that Bull and caused another to be printed wherein all the Faults of the former are very well corrected and so it may very well be concluded that Clement VIII was persuaded that his Predecessor instructing all Believers in a point that regards even the Principle of Faith might be deceived However I will not say so because I will not at all enter into Dispute with some Modern Doctors who to slip the Collar have bethought themselves to say That it is true the Bull was printed with the Bible Tannerus disp 1. de Fide q. 4. dub 6. n. 263. Thom. Comptonus in 2.2 dis 22. de sum pontif sect 5. which is still to be seen in many Libraries but that it was not affixed upon the Gates of St. Peter's Church and on the Field of Flora so long as it ought to have been according to the Laws of the Chancery of Rome As if the Truth or Falshood of the Contents of a Bull depended on the time that is to be taken in publishing it and as if the Pope who makes it became not Infallible but at the precise Minute of the Accomplishment of the time that it should have been affixed Let us leave that Instance then of Sixtus V. that we may not engage into that Sophistry of Disputation which to me seems not altogether so serious in a matter of that Importance CHAP. XIV The Instance of Pope John XXII I Shall produce no more Instances but that of Pope John XXII That Pope in his extream old Age of near fourscore and ten Years took a Conceit that as a certain and constant Truth the Opinion of some ought to be established in the Church Contin Hangii who had heretofore taught that the Souls of those who died in Grace and had been entirely purged from all the remaining dreggs of their Sins did not see the Face of God till after the Resurrection He did all that lay in his Power to have it pass He taught it publickly in Conferences and Congregations which he held upon that Subject he preached it himself he obliged by his Example the Cardinals and Prelates of his Court and other Doctors openly to maintain it He caused a learned Jacobin named Father Thomas de Valas Ibid. Gobel persona in Cosmodr aet 6. c. 71. Paul Langius in Chron. Citizen to be put in Prison who not doubting but that Opinion was an Error contrary to the express Word of the Son of God who said to the good Thief This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise preached the contrary even in Avignon where the Pope held his Court. In fine I find a Doctor of very great Authority Hadrian 6. in 4. sentent art 3. de Minist Confirm 22. whose eminent Virtue and singular Learning with a consummated Prudence in the management of Affairs raised him afterwards to the highest Dignity of the Church that says very plainly Publicè docuit declaravit ab omnibus teneri voluit quod animae c. That he obliged all men to hold that Doctrine for the future Be as it will it is certain that he did what lay in his Power to bring into his Opinion the Sacred Faculty of Theology and University of Paris which was by all men reverenced as the Mother of Sciences that for that end he sent thither two Doctors with the General of the Cordeliers who publickly maintained that Doctrine and preached the same which stirred up all Paris against them Whereupon King Philip de Valois caused all the Bishops and Abbots that then were at Paris Continu Hangii to assemble with the Doctors of the Faculty who in his Presence confounded those of Avignon and proved to them that what they had preached by order of the Pope was heretical That Prince who would suffer in his Kingdom no Novelty of Doctrine wrote to his Holiness with a great deal of Force and Respect beseeching him to retract that wicked Opinion Quatènus sententiam Magistrorum de Parisiis qui melius sciunt quid debet teneri credi in fide quam Jurista alii Clerici qui parum aut nihil sciunt de Theolâ—gia approbaret Ibid. which caused so much Scandal in the Church Nay he prayed him to send a Legate into France who in his Name might approve and confirm the Decree of the Doctors of Paris who knew far better what was to be believed as a matter of Faith than his Canonists and other Clergy of Avignon that were no great Divines The Pope who would neither wholly retract nor yet on the other hand provoke the King whose Protection he stood in need of took a middle Course which he thought would not be disagreeable unto him and prayed him to be satisfied Epist Joan. ad Philip 14. Calend. Decemb Pontif. 12. that every one might continue in their Opinion and Say Teach and Preach what they thought good upon that Subject As to that Proposition the King would again have the Advice of the Faculty Joan. Gerson Serm. in die Paschat coram Rege Petr. de Alliac prop. de toll sc coram Rege An. 1406. Gob. Perso Langius Odor Rayn ad An. 1334. whom he there assembled and the Faculty by a Decree of the Second of January One thousand three hundred and three at the Mathurins declared of new That the Opinion in question was Heretical and that by consequent it could neither be Preached nor Taught After that Philip proscribed it by Sound of Trumpet prohibiting all his Subjects to teach or maintain it and then that he might oblige the Pope to condemn it he wrote to him a second time in so forcible and extraordinary Terms that at length the Pope retracted it a little before his Death which hapned the Year following I have said all that I could in my History of the Fall of the Empire to excuse him even so far as to affirm with some that that Doctrine which he would have established by his own Authority was not as yet condemned as it was afterwards by Benet XII his Successor There are some notwithstanding who say that it had been long before rejected by the Roman Church as appears by the Confession of Faith that Clement IV. sent in the Year Two hundred threescore and seven to the Emperour Michael Paleologue whereof I have spoken in my History of the Schism of the Greeks However it be it is certain that it is an Error condemned not only by Pope Benet but much more solemnly above an hundred Years after in the third Article of the Definition of Faith which the Council of Florence made for reuniting the two
Churches And seeing it was not doubted but that Pope John XII in the manner he set about it acted with all his Authority and Force to introduce and establish that Error in the Church so also was it believed in that Fourteenth Age that the Pope teaching the Church might err and that he is not Infallible but when he pronounces from the Chair of the Universal Church as Head of it in a general Council or with consent of the principal Members of the Church who are the Bishops CHAP. XV. The Tradition of the Church of Rome as to that IT will be no difficult Task for us to prove that that Doctrine is conform to the constant Tradition of the Church of Rome as appears by the conduct of ancient Popes who in great Controversies about Faith after that they themselves had pronounced against Error have thought that for condemning it by a sovereign and infallible Sentence there was need of a Council or at least by another way the consent of the Church Vt pleniori Juâ—acio omnis possice ror aboleri Ep. 15. ad Ephes concil to the end that Error might be abolished by a more solemn and decisive judgment said the great St. Leo writing to the second Council of Ephesus though he himself had already condemned Eutyches in his particular Council which for that end he held at Rome This hath been confirmed by the Popes of the last Age when that after Leo X. had published his Bull against the Errors of Luther Solumque Concilium generale remedium à nostris praedecessoribus in casu simili usurpatum superesse Clem. VII in Bull. indict Concil 1533. Tam necessarium opus Pius IV. in Bull. confirm they declared in their Bulls speaking of the Council of Trent which was called for the supreme Decision of that Controversie that that was the last and necessary Remedy which had always been made use of by their Predecessors on the like Occasions Wherein all the Popes perfectly well agree with the fifth Council which for proving that necessity alledges the Example of the Apostles who decided in common with St. Peter the Question touching the Observation of the Law of Moses Nec enim potest in communibus de fide disceptationibus aliter veritas manifestari and then declares that otherways Truth cannot be found in Controversies that arise about the Faith It is evident by that that the Popes and that Council did not believe that the Pope was infallible for had they believed him infallible they would also have been persuaded that it was sufficient to consult that Oracle or that after his Responses and Decisions it would not have been necessary for abolishing Error entirely to have recourse to the determination of the Church represented by a Council But if it be said that there are some Heresies which the Popes alone have condemned and which have always been reckoned lawfully condemned without the Interposition of a Council it is easily granted but at the same time it may be said that that concludes nothing at all because in the three first Ages of the Church there were Heresies such as that of Cerinthus of the Ptolemaits the Severians Bardesanites Noetians Valesians and many others that single Bishops or particular Synods have condemned and which we are obliged to account Heresies tho neither Popes nor General Councils have had any hand in their Condemnation Not that these Bishops and Synods are infallible but because all the other Bishops who abominated these Heresies as much as they condemned them as they had done by approving all that they had done So when Popes have decided against any Doctrine which is afterward to be esteemed heretical it is so because they have defined with consent of the Church which hath received their Constitutions as we have in our days seen an illustrious Instance of it That which more confirms that ancient Tradition of the Roman Church is the great number of Popes who condemning some of their Predecessors after Oecumenical Councils have thereby declared that they themselves no more than others have not received of God the gift of Infallibility which he hath only bestowed upon his Church And indeed two great Popes of the last Times were so fully persuaded of this that they would not accept of it from the hands of men that would have attributed it unto them The first is Adrian VI. who in his Commentaries upon the fourth of the Sentences Art 3. de Mines confirm says positively and in a most decisive manner Certum est quod Pontifex possit err are etiam in iis quae tangunt fidem haeresiâ—â— per suam determinationem aut decretalem asserendo that he is certain the Pope may err even in matters belonging to the Faith teaching and establishing a Heresie by his Definition or by his Decretal which afterwards he proves by many Instances and very far from following Pius II. and changing Opinion as he did when he came to be Pope he persisted in it so constantly that he thought fit during his Pontificat that a new Edition of his Book should be printed at Rome exactly conform to that which he published when he was Doctor and Dean of Louvain wherein that Passage is entire without the Omission or Alteration of one single Word The second is Paul IV. who before his promotion to the Papacy had been great Inquisior Relat. Joann Hay Paris Theol. Addit aux mem de Casteluam c. 2. b. 6 the most severe and zealous that ever was for the preservation of the purity of the Catholick Faith against all Heresies Num matrimonium per verba de prasenti contractum quod est verum matrimonium verum sà cramentum juxta sanclorum Theolegorum sententiam authoritate nâ—stra dissolvi possit intelligo cum carnalis nulla conjunctio intercessit This Pope in the Year One thousand five hundred and fifty seven held a great Congregation of Cardinals Bishops and Doctors at Rome for the examining that important question Whether by the power of the Keys which Jesus Christ had given him as Successor to St. Peter he could dissolve the Marriage which the Mareschal of Montmorency had contracted in formal terms de praesenti with the Lady de Piennes Having proposed the matter to them by giving them to understand that the Question was about the deciding of a Point of very great Importance concerning a Sacrament he declared to them that he would not have them alledge to him the Examples of his Predecessors Non dubito quin ego decessores mei errare aliquando potuerimus non solum in koc sed etiam in pluribus aliis rerum generibus that he would not follow them but in so far as they were conform to the Authority of Holy Scripture and solid Reasons of Divinity For I make no doubt added he but that my Predecessors and may fail not only in this but in many other things Which he even proved by Testimonies
of Scripture which teacheth us Nec rationem habere ullam exempli quod hic vel ille decessor meus c. that God permits that men should for a time be ignorant of that which afterwards he discovers to his Church Perspicite an decessores nostri id satis intellexerint quod de indissolubili matrimonii vinculo disquirimus Who knows then now said he but that God may manifest by our means what others have not known touching the indissolvable Bond of Marriage Wherefore have no respect to Examples and don 't tell me what this man or that man of my Predecessors have determined about this matter in a like Case Confider only whether these Popes have understood rightly or not what they have decided concerning this matter of Marriage which we examine There is a Pope who doubtless will never be accused of having failed in maintaining the pontifical Authority that nevertheless frankly confesses and in very plain terms that he and his Predecessors may have erred in Decisions that they may have made concerning points relating to the Faith So that from all that I have hitherto said upon that Subject it may evidently be concluded That great Saints of the ancient Church Bishops in all parts of Christendome in the East in the West and in Africa full and general Councils ancient Popes who have either presided in or consented to these Councils in a word that all Antiquity hath believed that the Pope deciding by his pontifical Authority without the consent of the Church is not at all infallible CHAP. XVI The state of the Question touching the Superiority of a Council over the Pope or of the Pope over a Council IF I proceeded in this Treatise by way of Discourse and Argument I might soon conclude and not fear that any Objection could be brought against my Conclusion for if Antiquity hath believed as I think I have demonstrated that the Pope is not Infallible and that he may be deceived in his Decrees it 's most evident that it hath also believed by necessary consequence that the Tribunal of the Universal Church which without contradiction is infallible and represented by a general Council is above that of the Pope But because for avoiding of Dispute I only alledge evident matters of Fact against which all the Arguments in the World can never prevail for in fine can one by dint of Argument make that which has been never to have been I shall only relate what the Ancient Church hath believed touching that famous Question Seeing the State of the Question ought plainly and without Ambiguity to be proposed for avoiding perplexity to the end that people may at first agree about the thing that is in question and that it may not be said as it oftentimes happens after much jangling and dispute without concluding any thing that the thing was understood in a quite different sense than it was proposed in Take therefore the state of the Question as follows It is enquired Whether after that a Council is lawfully assembled the Pope who without contradiction is Head of it presiding in it in person or by his Legates or not being present nor presiding therein either the one way or t'other as it hath happened oftner than once and is to be seen in the second Oecumenical Council of an hundred and Ann. 381. fifty Bishops Ann. 553. and in the fifth of above an hundred and sixty Whether I say that Council considered in its Membets united either under the Pope who has Right to preside in it or failing of him under another President is above the Pope and hath sovereign Authority over him so that he is obliged to submit to its Decrees and Definitions to approve them and consent thereunto as all others are though he be in his own particular of a contrary Judgment or whether the Pope is so above all the other Members of that Council united together be he there or not that if he approve and confirm not by his Assent and Authority the Decrees and Definitions thereof That Council has no Authority neither over Him nor over Believers In this precisely consists that Question which hath not been moved in the Church but since the Council of Pisa some two hundred and forty Years ago Ann. 1409. And the reason why it was never spoken of before is because it was not at all doubted in the Ancient Church but that a Council was above the Pope I shall make it out by matters of Fact against which no Reply can be made CHAP. XVII That it is the Holy Ghost which in the Definitions of Faith pronounces by the Mouth of the Council ANtiquity hath always believed as it is believed at this day That the Council held at Jerusalem concerning the Legal Observations to which many amongst the converted Jews pretended that all who embraced the Faith of the Gospel were tied hath been a pattern to all Oecumenical Councils which have been since celebrated in the Church for the supreme Decision of other points of Controversie which have often divided Christians inâ—o very different Opinions and when the matter in question had been well examined the Decree that pass'd in that Council proceeded from the Holy Ghost which was uttered in these Words Visum est spiritui sancto nobis It hath ever since also been believed that when other Councils after an exact Enquiry into the Truth defined what was to be believed or what was to be done it is the Holy Ghost that speaks in their Decrees and that it may truly be said as it was said at Jerusalem It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to this Assembly This hath been expressed by St. Leo in these terms Sanctorum patrum canones spiritu Dei conditi totius mundi reverentia consecrati St. Leo Epist 84. ad Anast Thessalonic which have been received with so much Applause in the whole Church when he saith in one of his Epistles That the Canons of the holy Fathers have been made by the Spirit of God and that they are consecrated by the Veneration of the whole Earth Now it is certain that St. Peter depended upon the Holy Ghost as well as St. James St. John St. Paul St. Barnaby the Elders and other Brethren who were present in that Council and if after that he compelled by his Example the Christians to Judaise as Cardinal Baronius hath thought he had been much more to be blamed for having disobeyed the Holy Ghost and the Council than when St. Paul rebuked him openly before the Council as I have made it clearly out by the Testimony of the Fathers and of Pope Pelagius II. So that it ought to be concluded that the Pope who is no less inferiour to the Holy Ghost than St. Peter to whom he succeeds is obliged to submit to his Judgment against his own to obey and consent to his Decisions and consequently to those of the Council who neither speaks nor decides
Decision in controverted Points they have many times pronounced Sentences conform to those which the Popes had already past against one of the two Parties nevertheless they have examined them to know whether they were just or not which makes it apparent that they believed that they had a Superiority over the Pope altogether like to that which superiour Judicatures have over inferiour Take two famous Instances of this which puts the Truth thereof beyond all doubt Flavian Patriarch of Constantinople in his particular Council condemned the pernicious Doctrine of Eutyches who acknowledged but one Nature in Jesus Christ and the great Pope St. Leo by his Judgment confirmed that of the Patriarch as appears by the Letters which he wrote unto him wherein he wonderfully well asserts the Catholick Belief concerning the Distinction of two Natures the divine and humane in one only person in Jesus Christ against the Error of that Arch-Heretick who confounded them Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria who openly declared himself the Protector of Eutyches undertook his Business and prevailed so far by favour of Chrysaphius who could do any thing with his Master the Emperour Theodosius the younger that this Prince called the second Council of Ephesus there to examine what had been determined at Constantinople and Rome against Eutyches St. Leo who approv'd not this Proceeding that look'd like cabaling Quia etiam talium non est negligenda curatio piè ac religiosè Christiamssimus Imperator haberi voluit Episcopale concilium ut pleniori Judicio omnis possit error aboleri fratres nostros c. qui vice meâ Sincto conventui vestrae fraternitatis intersint communi vobiscum sententia quae domino sunt placitura constituant hoc est ut primitus pestifero errore damnato c. at first withstood it but consented thereunto at length for the sake of Peace hoping that all things would be carried in that Council according to Canonical Forms and that then the definitive Judgment that would be pronounced there would calm the Troubles of the Church Whereupon he sent his Legates thither with Letters to the Patriarch Flavian and to the Council wherein having declared what he had done against the new Heresie of Eutyches he adds that however seeing all care is to be taken to reclaim those who were gone astray and that the Emperour had appointed a Council to be held for that Effect to the end that Error might entirely be abolished by a more ample Judgment he sends a Bishop a Priest and a Deacon with an Apostolical Natory to assist thereat in his Name and there to settle by common Advice what was fit for the Service of God that is to say Si tamen sensus haereticos plenè aperteque propria voce subscriptione damnaverit St. Leo Ep. 15. ad Ephes Syn. that after so pernicious an Error should be condemned they would take into consideration the re-establishment of the Author of it always provided that he condemned his Heresie by Word and Writing This great Pope openly declares That that Opinion of Eutyches is Heresie Ep. 16. ad Flav. Nay he writes to Flavian that it is so manifest that there was no necessity to assemble a Council for condemning it and nevertheless he is content that one be held to the end that Error may be entirely abolished by a more ample Judgment But more still For that second Council of Ephesus by the Power of Chrysaphius and Violence of Dioscorus being become that infamous Den of Thieves where all Order was over-turned and Eutyches absolved this holy Pope who would have that Heresie thundred by a definitive Sentence made continual Instances to the Emperour Marcian and the Empress Pulcheria after the Death of Theodosius for calling of a new Council which was held at Chalcedon where after Examination of the Doctrine of Eutyches and the Letters of St. Leo they confirmed by their Sovereign Authority and by a supreme Judgment what the holy Pope had pronounced against that Heresie And in that he gloried when writing to Theodoret who had condemned in that Council the Heresie of Nestorius whereof he was suspected and that of Eutyches after he had congratulated with him in a most obliging manner he subjoyns upon his account these lovely Words We glory in the Lord Gloriamur in Domino qui nullum nos in nostris fratribus detrimentum sustinere permisit sed quae nostro prius ministerio definierat universo fraternitatis firmavit assensu ut verè à se prodiisse ostenderet quod prius à primâ omnium sede formatum toâ—ius orbis Judicium recepisset St. Leo Ep. 63. ad Theodor. who hath not permitted that our Brethren should do any thing to our Disadvantage but on the contrary hath confirmed by the Assent of the whole Council what had been before defined by our Ministery to shew that that Judgment has truly proceeded from him which being first rendered by the chief of all Sees hath been received by the Judgment of the whole Church Is not that to say that to know whether the Decisions of the Pope proceed from God or not they must be received by the whole Church and that by consequent the Council which represents it and which gives them their full force by its supreme Authority is above the Pope This appears still more clearly by one other Instance where it is to be seen that a General Council having examined a Judgment solemnly rendered by the Pope rescinds it and passes a contrary Sentence It is that which the fifth Council pronounced against the three Chapters and against the Constitution of Pope Virgilius whereby he had approved them forbidding all men whosoever to condemn them I have already spoken of that Action which standeth not in need of any long discourse to set it off in its full Force and Vigour In this Council the Doctrine of the Three Chapters and the Constitution of the Pope who approves them are examined He is prayed to preside in that Assembly and in the Examination that is made there of these Writings He refuses though he was then at Constantinople where the Council was held and with all his might still maintains those three Chapters and nevertheless they are condemned and are to this day reckoned to have been very lawfully and justly condemned nay he was afterwards necessitated to submit to that Decree as I have already said upon the Credit of very good Vouchers and if yet he did not submit to it it is still certain that the Council examined his Judgment and rescinded it After that can it be doubted but that the ancient Church believed that a Council is superiour to the Pope Let 's reflect a little upon what I said of the sixth Council which condemned the Heresie of the Monothelites In it was examined what the Pope St. Martin had decided concerning that Subject in his Council of the Bishops of Italy celebrated at Rome and what Pope Honorius had before him
l. 3. c. 6. told him with a great deal of holy liberty that he forbids not to dispense but to dissipate that he knows very well that the Popes are the Stewards of the house of God but for Edification and not for Destruction and that the Steward ought to be faithful when Necessity urges Dispensation is excusable and laudable when Advantage not of a private person but of the publick requires it and when neither appear in that which is defired then what is granted is no more a faithful Dispensation but a most cruel Dissipation And this as a learned Pope teacheth Hadrian V. de dispens Apostolic renders both him that obtains that Dispensation and him that grants it criminal in the sight of God unless he that granteth it hath been without his Fault imposed upon by a false Information as many times it happens The power then of dispensing exempts not Popes according to the Ancients from the Obedience which they owe to the Decrees of Councils and when they do otherwise and act in their Constitutions contrary to the Canons that is not a lawful practice but an abusing of their power and an abuse that draws many others after it Priâ—cipium maiorum inde fuisse quod nonnulli pontisices coacervaverant sibi magistros prurientes auribus ut eorum studio calliditate inveniretur ratio quâ liceret id quod liberet pontificem esse dominum beneficiorum onniâ—nâ— Ita quod voluntas pontificis qualiscunque ea faerit sit regâ—la quâ ejus operationes actiones dirigantur c. This that great Assembly of Cardinals and Prelates pick'd out of the best and ablest men of the Court of Rome which Paul III. called in the Year One thousand five hundred and thirty eight to search for means of remedying the Troubles of the Church represented to him with much Vigour and Respect when they told him that the source of so many Disorders was the Flattery of some new Doctors who strained their false Subtilties to make his Predecessors believe that they were the absolute Masters of all in the Church that they were above all Canons and that there was no other Law for them but their own Will and Pleasure So that when it happened that some Popes manifestly abusing their power transgressed the limits set them by the Canons Appeals were made to the next Oecumenical Council Ann. 1303. as was done upon account of the Bull of Boniface VIII who pretended to a Sovereign power over all the Crowns upon Earth as the University of Paris in the Year 1491 appealed to a Pope better informed and to the first general Council concerning certain exactions and gatherings of Tenths which were attempted against the Canons and Liberties of the Gallican Church and as hath been done oftner than once in Germany upon the like Occasions But seeing that Remedy is tedious and that it may be abused by Appeals very ill brought which seeing they could not be judged in an whole Age would render the pontifical Authority useless in the smallest matters which Pius II. and Julius II. have most justly condemned instead thereof we have in France an Appeal as of Abuse to theâ—â— arliament which representing the King sitting in his Chair of Justice to whom as protector of the Canons it belongs to hinder any thing from being acted contrary to them has Right to judge whether there be any matter in the Bulls Ordinances and Ecclesiastical Sentences which wound the Canons and our Liberties For in this chiefly consist the Liberties of the Kingdom and Gallican Church that no new thing can be commanded or enjoyned us contrary to the holy Decrees of the Councils received in France and against the ancient Law in the possession whereof we have always maintained our selves without submitting to any other Laws unless we our selves consent to them so that whatever derogates from these ancient Constitutions which are our inviolable Laws is by Decree rescinded And this seems to be grounded upon that excellent Sentiment of Innocent III. a great Pope great Canonist and great Lawyer who speaks like a Pope when he says Quae in derogationem sanctorum canonum attentantur tanto potius infringi volumus carere robore firmitatis quanto authoritas universalis Ecclesiae cui praesidemus ad id nos provocat inducit Innoc. III. l. 1. Ep. ad Episc Favent We will that all that is undertaken and attempted against the holy Canons be void and null and we will it so much the rather that the Authority of the holy Church wherein we preside moves and inclines us to it As if by that he would tell us that the Authority of the Church depends upon the Observation of her Canons and Laws and not on the Liberty that a Pope might take to violate them From all that I have said in this Chapter this truth of Fact results That all Antiquity hath believed that Popes being subject to the Decrees of Councils and obliged to act and govern according to the Laws that are prescribed to them by the Canons Councils by consequent are above the Popes CHAP. XXI What General Councils have decided as to that Point SEeing that Question was not moved in the Ancient Church when all were of the Opinion that I have now mentioned Councils that decide nothing but upon occasion of Differences and Disputes which arise amongst Christians about some certain point of Doctrine have given no definitive Sentence as to that particular till it was begun to be questioned and disputed about Concil Pisan t. 11. Edit Paris Act. conc ex codic Gemmetic t 6. Spirit Monach. Dionys 1.29 l. 1. sequen Niem l. 23. Platina Ciacconius And this I think happened upon occasion of the Council of Pisa which the Cardinals of both obediences that is of Gregory XII and Benet XIII with consent of almost all Kings and Sovereigns called for extinguishing that Schism which these two Competitors and pretended Popes entertained by their Collusion and Obstinacy contrary to the express Promise they had made of resigning up their Pretensions For seeing some who stood for Gregory Ann. 1409. protested against the Council which as they said had no Authority over the Popes such an unprecedented protestation in the Church being exploded the famous Doctor Peter Plaoust one of the Deputies from the University of Paris which at that time was in the Meridian of its Reputation made a long and learned Speech in full Council 29 May. wherein he proved by many Reasons that the Universal Church and by consequent a General Council which represents her is above the Pope adding that that was the Judgment of the University of Paris and of all the other Universities of France No sooner was he come down from the Pulpit but that the Bishop of Novare stept up and read aloud a Writing which declared that an hundred and three Doctors and Licentiates of Divinity deputed by the Universities to that Council being
assembled by order of the Cardinals to consult about that matter were all unanimously of the Judgment of the University of Paris and he affirmed that besides the Universities of France it was also the Judgment of the famous University of Bologna 1 June from which they had Letters and of that of Florence who had given it in writing under the Hands of sixscore Doctors Six days after the Process that was brought against Gregory and Benet having been proved and made out in a judicial manner the Council past a definitive Sentence whereby it declares Pietro de la Luna and Angelo Corario heretofore called Popes Benet XIII and Gregory XII obstinate Schismaticks and Hereticks convicted of enormous Crimes of Perjury Impiety and of Collusion to deceive Believers and to keep up the Schism which so long had rent the Church and as such deposes them from the Papacy This the Council did pursuant to the Decree whereby it had before determined that that Council represented the Church universal and that it was the only supreme Judge upon Earth to whom the Judgment of that Cause belonged though it was most certain that one of these two Pretenders was the true Pope After wards they chose Alexander V. who was acknowledged by the Universal Church except those two wretched Remains of Obedience who held out still for the two Antipopes and that Pope approved all the Decrees of the Council even a moment before his Death which was most holy and precious in the sight of God I have heretofore proved according to the Judgment of almost all the Churches of Christendom of that of Rome in particular nay and of the Universal Church represented by the Council of Constance which was but a continuation of this that it ought to be reckoned without contradiction lawful But since on the one hand it hath pleased some Doctors beyond the Alpes to doubt of it and that on the other I decline all dispute in this Treatise I will only stick to matter of Fact which cannot be contested to wit that this Council of Pisa hath been one of the greatest Assemblies that was ever seen in the Church For there were in it five and twenty Cardinals four Patriarchs six and twenty Archbishops an hundred fourscore and two Bishops either in person or by Proxy two hundred fourscore and ten Abbots amongst whom were all the Heads of the Orders the Generals of the Carthusians and of the four Mendicant Orders the great Masters of Rhodes of the Holy Sepulchre and the Teutonick Knights the Deputies of the Universities of Paris Tholouse Orleans Anger 's Montpellier Bologna Florence Cracovia Vienna Prague Cologne Oxford and Cambridge and of some others and those of the Chapters of above an hundred Metropolitan and Cathedral Churches above three hundred Doctors of Divinity and of the Law the Ambassadors of the Kings of France England Poland Bohemia Sicily and Cyprus of the Dukes of Burgundy and Lorrain Brabant Bavaria of the Marquess of Brandenburg Lantgrave of Thuringe and of almost all the other Princes of Germany besides that the Kings of Hungary Sweden Denmark Norway and in a word those of Spain except Arragon shortly after adhered to that Council and by consequent all these Prelates all these Doctors all these Orders all these Universities all these Kingdoms all these States that 's to say in a word almost all Christians in the beginning of the fifteenth Century when that Dispute was started concerning the Superiority of the Council or of the Pope believed conform to the Belief of Antiquity That a Council is above the Pope But you are to take notice of somewhat more particular and convincing still When five years after the Council of Constance was opened for continuing that of Pisa as it had been decreed in that Council which was rather interrupted than concluded the Dispute concerning the Superiority of the Pope or of the Council was started again with greater Heat than before For some Cardinals being arrived from Scaffhausen whither the Pope who had escaped from Constance had retired attempted in full Assembly where Sigismund the Emperour was present to prove that the Council was dissolved because John XXIII who had abandoned it being owned for true Pope by all that were present was above the Council which could have no Authority without him Then was there a general murmuring in the Assembly and many of those who had greatest Authority and Reputation by reason of their Dignity and Knowledge Et iis responsum fuit alacriter per plures de ipso concilio viros magnae authoritatis scientificos scilicet quod Papa non esset supra Concilium sed sub concilio facta est illie contentio magna hinc inde Niem in vit Joann J. Gers Serm. coram Concil undertook to refute them and to prove on the contrary That the Council was superiour to the Pope conform to the Sermon that the famous John Gerson had made to the Council a few days before wherein he had made it out in twelve propositions That a general Council representing the Universal Church is above the Pope not only in the doubt whether or not he be true Pope but also in the Assurance that is to be had whether he be lawfully chosen or not Etiam ritè electi as they did undoubtedly hold John XXIII to have been Wherefore that Question both before and after the Sermon of Gerson having been examined in the Conferences of Nations according to the Order appointed by the Council a Report of it was made in the fourth Session Act. Concil Constan t. 12. con Ed. Paris Anton. tit 22. c. 6. §. 2. where nine Cardinals and two hundred Bishops were present with the Emperour Sigismund the Ambassadors of the Kings of France England Poland Norway Cyprus Navarr and many Princes of Germany and there seeing it had been already declared in the preceding Session that the Council subsisted and still retained all its Force and Authority tho the Pope had withdrawn himself it was by common Consent thus concluded and defined That the Holy Council lawfully assembled and representing the Church Militant hath received immediately from Jesus Christ a Power which all and every one even the Pope himself are obliged to obey in all that concerns the Faith the extirpation of Schism and the general Reformation of the Church of God in its Head and Members And to the end that it might not be said what some have said since without having carefully read the Council of Constance that that is only to be understood during the time of a Schism it is added to the Decree in the following Session That whatever Pope refuses to obey the Decrees not only of this Council but also of any other that shall be lawfully called ought to be punished if he amend not The Council afterward exercises its sovereign Authority over Pope John XXIII acknowledged by them for true Pope by the Church of Rome and by all Christian
c. Here he relates at length the Decree of the fourth Session with that Clause Et ad reformationem Ecclesiae in capite in membris and having done so This says he to the Fathers of the Council is the Decree that you have made Dare M. Schelstrate after this still say that those of Basil have falsified that Decree by adding thereunto those Words And since for convincing him he hath obliged me to alledge so authentick a Piece in that part of this excellent Sermon which John Gerson made to the Council of Constance I should be glad he might know what after the Rehearsal of the Decree as we have it that learned Doctor adds speaking still to the Council These are his own Words which are very considerable Huic veritati fundatae supra petram sacrâ—e Scripturae quisquis à proposito detrahit cadit in haeresim jam damnatam quam nullus unquam Theologus maxime Parisiensis Sanctus asseruit Whoever opposes and contradicts that Truth founded upon the Rock of Holy Scripture falls into the Heresie that now hath been condemned which no Divine especially of the Faculty of Paris nor no Saint ever maintained In this manner Gerson speaks of the Opinion of those who will not have a Council to be above the Pope We give it a softer term and reject it not as heretical but as contrary to the Doctrine of Antiquity and consequently false Then he goes on with greater force still and expresses himself in these Words I lately saw St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure I have not here the Books of other Doctors They allow the Pope the supreme and full Ecclesiastical Power Vidi nuper Sanctum Thomam Bonaventuram hic reliquorum libros non habeo dant supremam plenam summo pontifici potestatem Ecclesiasticam rectè proculdubio sed boc faciunt in comparatione ad fideles singulos particulares Ecclesias Dum etiam comparatio facienda fuisset ad anctoritatem Ecclesiae Synodaliter congregatae subjecissent Paepam usum potestatis suae eidem Ecclesiae tanquam matri suae cujus legem dimitti non debere iradit sapiens tanquam praeterea regulae vel legi directivae infallibiliter cui se submittere tenetur omnis frater peccabilis de Ecclesia cujus anctoritatem si non audierit frater quilibet etiam Papa qui nobiscum dicit Pater Noster audi itur quid dixerit omni Catholico Christus sit tibi inquit sicut Ethnicus Publicanus id est excommunicatus and without doubt they are in the right because saying so they compare the Pope with all Believers and all Churches taken particularly But if they had been to compare him with the Authority of the Church assembled in a Council they would have subjected him and the exercise of his Power to the same Church as to his Mother whose Laws the Wise Man says one should never forsake and as to the Rule which directs us infallibly and to which all men in the Church liable to failing are obliged to submit And if any one whoever he be of our Brethren though he were Pope who says his Pater Noster as we do will not acknowledge her Authority and obey her let us hearken to that which Jesus Christ enjoyns to every Catholick Let him be to you saith he as an Heathen and as a Publican that is to say as an excommunicate Person And this is just the same which the Pope Silvester II. said in express terms many Ages before Gerson And to prevent M. Schelstrate from offering to say that the Text of this Doctor hath been falsified by adding thereunto these words Et ad reformationem Ecclesiae in caepite in membris I declare unto him that the Treatise de potestate Ecclesiastica where that great man quotes that Decree hath been collationed with four Manuscripts two of the History of St. Victor marked N N. S. and M M. 11. with one of the Colledge of Naevarr and of the Bibliotheke of Monsieur Colbert marked 99. That the Treatise An quomodâ— appellare liceat à summo pontifice where the same Decree is to be found is altogether conform to two Manuscripts one of St. Victor marked N N. 9. and the other of the Bibliotheke of Navarr That the Sermon pro viagio Regis Romanorum hath in like manner most exactly been compared with a Manuscript of St. Victor marked according to the ancient Catalogues N N. 11. with one of the Bibliotheke of Navarr and with one of the Library of Monsieur Colbert marked 99. In a word that what is to be read in the Sermon Nuptiae factae sunt c. wherein Gerson repeated before the Council the Decree of the fourth Session is to be found in a very ancient Manuscript of St. Victor marked N N. 19. word for word as we have caused it to be printed All these Manuscripts have been communicated to me by Monsieur d' Herouval Regular Canon of St. Victor and Doctor of the Surhonne whose merit already well known to the Learned will shortly be to the Publick in the new Edition that he is preparing of the Works of Gerson which by his Care and Pains will be found restored to their Perfection that they have never hitherto had This I think is enough to oblige M. Schelstrate to yield Would he have any thing more precise He shall be satisfied The Council of Basil ten Years before the Extract made which he pretends they falsified proposed that Decree such as we have it and renewed the same in the second Session Cardinal Julian who was nominated by Martin V. to preside in that Council and who after the Death of that Pope presided therein in Name of Eugenius IV. consented to that Decree in behalf of the Pope in that second Session and defended it in the Letter which he wrote to Eugenius to remonstrate to him the Reasons which obliged his Holiness not to offer to dissolve that Council Had not this Decree been that of Constance most faithfully proposed would he have consented to it Would not he have objected against that notorious Falsification Et tibi prout opus â—â—deris esse juxta tibi injuncta ordinata in Concilio Constantiensi optimè provideas Julian Ep. 2. ad Eugen Would not he have protested that what was added to the end of the Decree was no part of it he who was very well acquainted with his Council of Constance and daily studied it having express Orders from Eugenius to act in the Council of Basil as he should find it expedient according as he was enjoyned and directed by the Decrees of the Council of Constance Would he have more still Here is enough to satisfie him Eugenius IV. in the Bull which he published during the sixteenth Session declares That according to the Decrees of Constance he had called the Council of Basil for the Extirpation of Heresies the Peace of Christian People and the general Reformation of the Church
factam vigorâ— illorum decretorum non valuisse Si illa non valent nec etiaâ—â—apae Mâ—rtini tenuit electio facta illo superstite Si Martinus non fuit Papa nec sanctitas vestra est quae per Cardinales ab ipso factos electa est c. Ep. 2. Juliani ad Eugen. I am obliged said he to him most holy Father to remonstrate to your Holiness that if the Decrees of Constance which the Council of Basil has renewed have no Authority that whereby John XXIII was deposed is of no force If it be so the Election of Pope Martin V. which was made during the Life of John XXIII is null and consequently that of your Holiness seeing you must then have been elected by Cardinals of his Creation who was not Pope By the same reason it is evident that all the other Elections made since Martin V. until the present Pope must be unlawful M. Schelstrate without doubt will answer to that that John XXIII consented to his Condemnation and even ratified it when he was at liberty But he must needs have done so considering the condition he was in and it is enough to read the very Author who is cited that is Leonard Aretin to be informed that the poor deposed Pope went to Florence to cast himself at the feet of Martin V. only because he knew not whither to betake himself Consilio Martini cognito id erat ut Manâ—ouae perpetuo carcere tencretur antequam c. Leonard Aretin Hist ver Italic and that he was informed that it was resolved that if he did it not his Person should be seised and confined to perpetual Imprisonment And besides is it not well known that the Ratification cannot be good if the Act that is ratified be null Bellarmine's Answer has as little force Though saith he Etsi Concilium sine Papa non potest definire nova dogmata fidei potest tamen judicare tempore Schismatis quis sit verus Papa c. L. 2. de Conc. c. 19. the Council without the Pope cannot determine new Doctrines of Faith yet it may judge during a Schism who is the true Pope and provide a true Pastor for the Church when there is none certain In the first place he grants by that that all which the Council determined against Wicleff John Huss and Jerome of Prague and against that damnable Proposition of John Petit is null as having been decided by an incompetent Judge Who dare maintain such a thing Secondly it is absolutely false that a General Council without the Pope cannot make Decrees concerning the Faith Did not the first Council of Constantinople make such against Macedonius concerning the Divinity of the Holy Ghost And did not the fifth condemn the Heresie of the three Chapters not only without Pope Vigilius but likewise contrary to his Constitution who would have had them not to be condemned Besides it was not the Business of that Council to judge who was the true Pope for the Council of Constance never questioned but that John XXIII was it would only have had him perform the Promise which he made to renounce his Right and freely to lay down for Peace sake tho he was true Pope And in the fourth place if that Council was not then as he called it before but a particular Council where a third part of the Church only met it could not lawfully have condemned John XXIII because as all agree none but an Oecumenical Council representing an Universal Church hath that Power and supreme Authority nay and many deny that it can unless in case of Heresie proceed against any Pope much less if that Council held him for a true Pope as the Council of Constance owned John XXIII to have been From all this it follows that the three Reasons alledged by M. Schelstrate in as many Articles to prove against the Clergy of France that one may doubt of the Authority of the Decrees of the fourth and fifth Session of the Council of Constance are not only false but also of dangerous consequence to the Church Thus we have dispatched his first Chapter the other two will not long hold out CHAP. XXIV A Refutation of one of the two Chapters of M. Schelstrate THis Writer in one of these Chapters pretends to prove that those Decrees of the fourth and fifth Session are not approved I have already made it out that Martin V. approved them twice solemnly once by ordaining that those who return from Heresie should be interrogated whether or not they approved without Exception all which that Council approves and condemned all that it condemns and another time in the last Session where he declares that he approves and will inviolably observe all the Decrees that have been made in that Council concerning matters of Faith and as he expresses it by a new word Conciliariter Upon which two Objections are raised against us The first from these Words concerning matters of Faith from which M. Schelstrate concludes that the Pope hath only approved the Decrees against Wickleff and John Huss because they alone saith he concern matters of Faith What then will become of the other Decrees that were made for the Extirpation of Schism and for the Reformation of the Church which are the two principal Points for which the Council and the Popes Martin and Eugenius in express terms declare that the Holy Synod representing the Universal Church was called Let him tell me whether those Decrees be approved or not if they be not he must then according to his Principles grant that the Deposition of John XXIII is null that all that followed upon it is invalid and that all the good Laws that were made in that Council for Reformation are of no Authority and oblige no Man And if they be approved it is not to be doubted but that those of the fourth and fifth Session are also approved seeing they were chiefly made for the extinction of Schism For if the Council were not above the Pope even lawfully elected as John Gerson saith and if it had not Power to depose him when that is necessary for the common Good of the Church in case of Heresie Schism or enormous Scandal as it hath happened oftner than once the Council could never have compelled the Pope who was acknowledged to be true and lawful to renounce his Right for peace sake The other Objection brought against us is weaker still than the former Cardinal Bellarmine whom M. Schelstrate hath followed step for step upon that word Conciliariter from which he concludes that these Decrees of Constance have not been approved by Pope Martin V. because the Pope declares Id est move aliorum Conciliorum re diligenter examinata Constat autem hoc decretum sine ullo examine factum à Concilio Constantiensi L. 2. de Concil c. 19. that he only approves those which have been made Conciliariter or as that Cardinal interprets it in the manner as other Councils have made their Decrees the
the whole General Council whence it follows that the most pernicious and dangerous Error to the Church of some men ought to be condemned who to flatter the Pope so rob the Council of its Authrity that they have the Boldness to say that the Pope is not of necessity obliged to follow the Decisions of the Council and that on the contrary we should test upon the Judgment of the Pope if he oppose that of the Church or of a General Council Thus that great Cardinal from the chair of Truth before the whole Council of Constance conform to its Decrees and in presence of the Pope himself who found no fault with it and seemed not at all displeased that that Opinion was called an Error most pernicious and most dangerous invented by the Flatterers of Popes Decr. Facult Ann. 1429. Kal. April So also the sacred Faculty following so good an Example about twelve years after made F. John Sarasin retract that Proposition which he had put into one of his Theses All the Authority that gives force to the Decrees of a Council Tota authoritas dans vigorem statutis residet in solo summo pontisice resides in the Pope alone He was obliged to make a publick recantation and to change his Proposition into this All the Authority that gives force to the Decrees of a Council Toâ—â— authoritas dans vigorem statutis residet non in solo summo pontifice sed principaliter in spiritu Sancto in Catholica Ecclesia resides not in the Pope alone but chiefly in the Holy Ghost and Catholick Church And certainly it is very rational that the Pope should depend upon the Will of the Holy Ghost who teaches as it pleases him all Truth to the Church and to the Council which represents it and not that the Holy Ghost should depend upon on the Will of the Popes as it must needs do if after that divine Spirit hath by the Council defined the Consubstantiality of the Word the Divinity of the Holy Ghost the Unity of Person and the Plurality of Natures Wills and Operations â—n Jesus Christ and such other Truths concerning the Faith his Decisions had no Authority if it pleased not the Pope to consent to â—hem And this I think is sufficient in relation to the Approbation of the Decrees of Constance one word more as to what M. Schelstrate pretends that they were only made for the time of a Schism CHAP. XXV A Refutation of the other Chapter of M. Schelstrate THis Objection that is made against us is of an old ruinous Engine ready to fall of it self tho we set no strong hand to it to push it down The truth is the Council of Constance which foresaw that it might be made use of to weaken the supreme Authority of Oecumenical Councils did anticipate and overthrow it even before it was made and for that end in the fifth Session wherein it declared that all men of what Dignity soever are obliged to obey the Decrees and Ordinances of that sacred Council of Constance these words are added And of any other General Council lawfully assembled Et cujuscunque alterius Concilii Generalis legitimè congregati He that speaks of any other Council without Restriction comprehends all times both out of Schism and during a Schism So the Council of Basil which was a long time lawful when there was no Schismâ— declared that the Pope was obliged to obey it and every other Council and the Reasons given for it in that long Synodal Answer approved by Pope Eugenius necessarily comprehend all times as may be seen in the two Reasons which only I shall alledge The first is That an Oecumenical Council is a whole and a Body whereof the Pope or he that presides in it in his place is the Head For there is no Acephalous Council as M. Schelstrate speaks that is to say without a Head calling that of Constance so in the Absence of the Pope Nay if he refuse to preside when he might or withdraw himself from it there is always some body that presides therein in his place and represents him in that quality of Head as the whole Council represents the Universal Church and it will be acknowledged without difficulty that the Head is no more but the chief Member and principal Part of that great Body Certè Petrus Apostolus primum membrum universalis Ecclesiae est Gregor l. 4. Ep. 8. as Saint Gregory speaking of Saint Peter positively affirms Not as Jesus Christ who is not only the Head but also the Master of the Universal Church which he hath purchased with his own Blood and by consequent it is his Church it properly belongs unto him and he can dispose thereof as he thinks fit as an Owner can do with his Estate Dominus est Hence it is that he cannot be said to be but a part of the Church Domious Vniverss noâ— est pars universiâ—â—â— Arist 12 Meâ—aph he is over all as God who is the absolute Master of the World is not a part of that whole of that Universe whereof he is the Master as Aristotle himself hath acknowledged It is not so with the Pope who is indeed Head of the Church Universal but not Master Jesus Christ having said to St. Peter as well as to all the other Apostles Matth. 20. Mark 12. Luke 22. The Princes of the Gentiles exercise Dominion over them but it shall not be so among you And that entirely ruines that odious Comparison that some would make between our Kings who are over the States of their Kingdom and the Popes whom they would place over the whole Church There is a great deal of Difference Our Kings are the Masters in their States exercise Dominion over them but not the Popes in the Church but it shall not be so with you The Pope then is but a part of the Church and of a General Council that represents it and not the Master Now it is evident by the light of Nature that the whole is more noble than every part and carries it over them according to that sentence of St. Austin L. de Bapt. c. 4. Vniversum partibus semper optimo Jure praeponitur And upon that Maxim received of all Men without contradiction St. Jerome in one word derides that question when he saith Ep. ad Evagr. Major est Authoritas orbis quam urbis Thus the Pope as the chief part and Head of the universal Church is above every part and his power regulated according to the Canons extends over all the Churches taken particularly and none are exempt from his Jurisdiction but no ways over all the Churches assembled in a General Council unless it be for calling of them and presiding therein And in this manner is to be understood what is to be found in the Bulls of Eugenius IV. and Leo X. in the Councils of Florence and the Lateran besides that this last is not agreed upon to be
an universal Council The other reason of the Council of Basil in its Synodal Answer is that an Ecumenical Council hath received the gift of Infallibility as well as the universal Church which it represents and that the Pope may err as I have proved it to have been the belief of all Antiquity But to avoid disputing This reason may be set off in a stronger and more convincing manner by saying They who hold an opinion contrary to that of the Superiority of a Council are still ready to grant that during a Schism it is above the Pope who is controverted because what is certain ought always to be preferred before the uncertain This is a Principle then agreed upon on both sides from whence it may be thus argued It is certain that a general Council representing the Universal Church is Infallible no Catholick can doubt of this On the other hand it is not certain that the Pope is so seeing many very able and Catholick Doctors and most famous Universities not only doubt of it but teach and vigorously maintain that he is not Hence it must necessarily be concluded that seeing what is certain ought to be preferred before the uncertain The tribunal of a Council which as it is certainly known cannot err in its determinations is over that of the Pope who perhaps may be deceived there being no certainty of his Infallibility It is evident that those two reasons of the Council of Basil when it was very lawful and approved by Pope Eugenius make it appear that every General Council is above the Pope both in the time of a Schism and when there is no Schism seeing in both times the Council is a whole of which the Pope is but a part and that it is certain that in both these times the Council is alike Infallible and that at least it is not certain that the Pope is neither in the one nor other of these times Having said so much I think I have fully answered M. Schelstrate as to what he hath alledged in the dissertation that he hath made against one of the chief Articles of the Declaration of the Clergy of France For as to the long discourse which that Author makes in one of his Chapters to persuade us upon the credit of his Manuscript that after great debates among the Nations it was at length resolved by common consent that the Reformation of the Church in the Head and Members should not be attempted 'till after the election of the Pope It is without doubt pitiful and deserves not any answer Can it be concluded from thence that a Pope lawfully elected who is present and presides in the deliberations of a Council is not a part of that whole and of that Body which represents the Universal Church whose Authority ought to be preferred before that of any of its Members in particular by that reason which proves that the whole is greater and more noble than any of its parts And by what Philosophy does he pretend to make us acknowledg that from the presence of a Pope in a Council it follows that that Pope is not obliged to submit to the Decrees that may be made in it even contrary to his own Judgment when they are carried by the plurality of Voices whether it be of individual Persons or of Nations That is the very thing in question to wit if a Council whether the Pope be there or not is above the Pope How will he make out his proof Besides it was not concluded in that Assembly of the Nations that no Decrees concerning Reformation could be made before the Election of a Pope but only that before that time they should not all be made and especially such as moderated the Power of the Pope and confined it to just limits it being very reasonable that he should be present at those deliberations wherein he was so much concerned The truth is not to speak of the other Decrees of Reformation that were already made in the Council there was a very considerable one made relating to the Pope in the nine and thirtieth Session before the Election of Martin V. who was not chosen till after the one and fourtieth It is appointed by that Decree that the Popes being so much the more obliged to make the light of their Faith conspicuous by how much they are raised in Dignity above all others shall for the future make in presence of those who have elected them and before their Election be Published their Confession of Faith according to the Form prescribed to them by the Council in the same Session That without doubt was a pretty important Reformation seeing thereby was revived what heretofore had been practised and what King Childebert demanded of Pope Pelagius I. to inform himself of his belief because it was thought that that Pope had too much favoured the Eutichyans who had surprised him by their Artifices The Council then might have made the other Decrees of Reformation before the Election of the Pope but they were willing they should not be made till after that the Pope was elected and the manner how they appoint that Reformation to be made is so far from favouring M. Schelstrate that it infers a conclusion quite contrary to what he pretends and manifestly proves that the Pope even when not questioned is inferiour to a Council Statuit decernit And indeed the Council wills and ordains in the fourtieth Session that the Pope either with the Council or with the Deputies of the Nations do reform the Church in the Head and Members as to the Points that were to be given him and that he make that Reformation before the dissolution of the Council Was there ever a more authentick act of supreme Authority than this When there was no more Schism after the union of the three obediences as M. Schelstrate owns The Council ordains that an undoubted Pope such as certainly he that was to be elected must be do reform the Church in the Head and Members but it will have it to be done with consent of the Council Any Bishop may do as much the difference is that he shall not be President of the Assembly where he shall give his Vote as all the rest do Now if the Council will not in Body set about that work it refers it to the care of the Pope in conjunction with the Deputies of the Nations He doth not act then in that Reformation but by the authority of the Council that deputes him and all the advantage that he is to have over the rest is that he shall be the first Deputy at the Head of all the others In fine they prescribe to him both the Articles upon which they would have the Decrees of Reformation made and the time wherein they should be expeded If that be not to ordain prescribe command and consequently if these be not evident marks and Authentick acts of Authority and Superiority I know none in the World What will
Council And therefore to remove all ambiguity and to prevent the wresting of these words to a sense contrary to the Superiority of a Council they said that instead of Regendi Ecclesiam universalem it ought to be put into the Canon Potestatem regendi omnes fideles omnes Ecclesias that the Pope hath the Power of Governing all Believers and all Churches which is to be understood of all not Assembled in Council but taken severally and in particular none of them being exempted from the Jurisdiction of the Pope in what relates to the publick good the general Government and the cases limited by the Canons So careful even to a scruple have our Ancestors been to stand upon their guard on that side that no attack in the least might be made against the ancient Doctrin always inviolably observed in this Kingdom And it is most remarkable that at that time when the Doctors of Paris most strenuously maintained that Doctrin after the Councils of Constance and Basil against those that strove to invalidate their Decrees Innoc. VIII Litter ad Theol. Paris 7. iâ— Sept. Ann. 1486. Innocent VIII sent them a Brief wherein he makes their Elogy and amongst other things magnifies the greatness of their zeal which they expressed for maintaining the honour and rights of the Holy Roman Church and for defending the Catholick faith against the Heresies which they incessantly confuted After all that I may end where I began to handle this question I shall conclude with the testimony of another Pope whom the Authors who will have it as M. Schelstrate will that Popes are above Councils can never reject And that is Pius II. who when he was no more but Aeneas Sylvius Picolomini Clerk to the Council of Basil whereof he hath given us the History maintained with all his might as well as the Doctors of Paris that the Authority of a General Council is Superior to that of a Pope But when he himself was promoted to be Pope he thought for a reason that may easily be guessed at that he ought to make known to the World that he had changed his Opinion and that then he thought the quite contrary of what before he had maintained with all the heat that a Man ought to have who is well persuaded of the Justice of the Cause whereof he undertakes the defence And that he solemnly did by a Bull wherein he retracts and in that Recantation that he might declare that he followed another Opinion he would not stiffle the manifest truth concerning the nature of the Opinion which he forsook and of the other that he embraced For in this manner he speaks in his Bull hinting at the Conferences and Disputes that were had with Juliano Cesarini Cardinal of St. Angelo who stood up for the interest of the Pope as much as he could and yet for all that agreed in Judgment with the Council wherein he presided Tuebamur antiqaam seutentiam i le novam defendebat Extollebamus generalis concilii autoritatem ille Apostolicae sedis potestatem magnopere commendabat He defended says that Pope the Ancicient Doctrin and he took the part of the new We extolled the Authority of the Vniversal Council and he magnified extreamly the Power of the Apostolick See This now is plain dealing Pius II. in Bull. retract That Pope who was willing to change his Opinion with his condition which after him Adrian VI. did not declares fairly and honestly in his Bull that the Doctrin whereof he had formerly undertaken the Defence concerning the Superiority of a Council is the Doctrin of Antiquity and that the other is new And that is all I would be at I need no more to gain my cause For all that I have pretended to in this Treatise is to shew what Antiquity hath believed concerning the Points in hand So that after so authentick a Declaration of Pope Pius II. I have ground to say as to this Article what I have already oftener than once said in relation of the others with Pope Celestin I. writing to the Bishops of the Gallican Church Desinat incessere novitas vetustarem CHAP. XXVI The state of the question touching the Power that some Doctors have attributed to Popes over the Temporal I Have if I mistake not made it clearly appear in all the preceding Chapters of this Treatise how far the Ancient Church hath believed that the Power over Spirituals which Jesus Christ gave to St. Peter and his Successors as Heads of the Universal Church extended I am now to shew whether according to the Judgment of venerable Antiquity they have also any Power over the Temporal of any person whatsoever and especially of Kings and other Sovereigns by virtue of the primacy that by Divine right belongs to them Heretofore there have been some so passionately concerned for the Grandieur of the Apostolical See or rather so blindly devoted to the Court of Rome that differs much from the Holy See that they have dared to publish that the Pope representing the person of Jesus Christ who is King of Kings Lord of Lords and Universal Monarch who hath an absolute Power over all Kingdoms from which he may even depose Kings if they fail in their duty as these Kings may turn off their Officers who behave not themselves as they should And this is called the direct Power which Boniface VIII thought fit to take to himself in his Tuae unam Sanctam that his Successor Clement V. was obliged to recal That is not the question here For I cannot think that now a days there is any Man who hath the boldness to maintain so palpable and odious a falshood But there are a great many beyond the Alps who by the Philosophical distinction of an indirect Power which they have invented teach that the Pope may dispose of Temporals depose Kings absolve Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance that they have taken to them and transfer their Dominions to others when he judges it to be necessary for the good of Religion because say they since he hath the inspection over every thing that concerns it so hath he Power to remove destroy and exterminate every thing that may annoy the same and by that clinch they cunningly enough come home to their Point though they would seem to forsake it For a Pope will always take the pretext of the welfair of Religion when he has a mind to undo a Prince as all these Popes have done who after Gregory VII deposed Emperors and since them Julius II. who transferred the Kingdom of John King of Navarre to Ferdinand King of Arragon because that King would not declare against Louis XII whom this Pope persecuted Now seeing that Opinion which the Gallican Church and all our Doctors have always reckoned very dangerous and inconsistent with publick tranquillity hath still vouchers amongst some Modern Doctors especially beyond the Alps I must now make it appear according to the method which I have
non habet ac dignitates regales conferendi sic neque Imperator in Ecclesias introspiciendi c. Gregor II. Ep. 2. ad Leon. Isaur nor of conferring Royal Dignities so neither hath the Emperor any right to meddle with the Government of the Church This is enough to shew that Cardinal Bellarmine hath impertinently made use of the example of that Pope against us because according to the relation of some Greek Historians though the Latins of that time take no notice of it he by his Authority hindered the Romans his Subjects from paying the Tribute which they owed him To overthrow this weak Argument there needs no more but to consider Gregory in the quality of Pope and then in the quality of the chief Citizen of Rome As Pope he wrote to that Iconoclast Emperor long and excellent Letters wherein joyning force to affection he admonishes reproves and exhorts him he prays him and threatens him with the Judgments of God and then so far was he from deposing him from his Empire that he prevents as much as in him lay all Italy from revolting against him and from acknowledging another Emperor thereby maintaining the People who were ready to shake off the insupportable yoak of so wicked a Prince in their obedience But when he saw that Leo grew more and more obdurate in his impiety that he had attempted two or three times to have him assassinated and that he gathered together all the Forces of the Empire to come and do at Rome as he gave it out in all places what he had done at Constantinople in beating down the Holy Images and putting all to Fire and Sword if they renounced not the Ancient Religion Then having as Pope declared him Excommunicated he did as chief Citizen of Rome as the rest did what the Law of nature allows to wit take the Arms out of a mad Man's Hand and prevent the giving him money which he would have used for their ruine and desolation and afterward he put himself with the other Romans under the protection of Charles Martel for the safety of their Religion and Lives though for all that this Pope never offered to depose Leo nor to absolve his Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance For he himself and his Successors long after acknowledged the Greek Emperors for their Sovereigns and it was not before the Empire of Constantin and Irene that the Romans and with them the Pope as a Member of that Civil and Politick Body and not by his Pontifical Authority seeing that they could no longer be defended against the Lombards by the Greeks who had abandoned them submitted to Charlemagne This is fully and clearly made out in my History of the Iconoclasts Wherein it may be seen that the example of Gregory II. which Bellarmin alledges against us is nothing at all to the purpose As also more it may be seen there that Pope Adrian I. wrote to Constantin Copronymus and to Leo his Son both great Hereticks in very submissive terms as to his Masters and Sovereigns and that 's a thing which the Ancient Popes never failed to do Let it be considered with what submission Pelagius I. wrote to Childebert King of France who would have him send to him a Confession of his Faith He obeyed his orders and told him that according to Holy Scripture Popes ought to be subject to Kings as well as other Men Quibus nos etiam subditos esse Sacrae Scripturae testantur In what manner did Stephen II. implore the assistance of Pepin against the Lombards I beg of you Peto à te tanquam praesenti aliter assistens provolutus terrae tuis vestigiis prosternens Steph. II. Ep. 4. ad Pip. saies he that favour as if I were in your presence prostrate upon the ground at your Feet Can there be terms of greater humility and of a more perfect obedience than those which the great St. Gregory makes use of in one of his Letters to the Emperor Mauricius who enjoined him a thing to which he had great aversion and which in his own Judgment he thought contrary to the Service of God Ego verò haec Dominis iners loquens quid sum nisi pulvis vermis Ego quidem Jussioni subjectus c. Greg. l. 2. Jud. 11. Ep. 62. ad Mauric What am I saies he who represent this to my Masters but a little Dust and a Worm For my part who am obliged to obey I have done what hath been commanded me and so I have fulfilled my obligations on both sides for on the one Hand I have executed the Emperors order and on the other I have not failed to represent what the cause of God required And in another Letter upon occasion of his being informed that the Lombards had put a Bishop to death in prison De quâ re unum est quod brevitur suggeras serenissimus Dominis nostris c. he would have it represented to the Emperors whom he calls his most Serene Masters that if he would attempt any thing against the lives of the Lombards that Nation should have no more King Duke nor Count But because I fear God saies he Sed quia Deum timeo in mortem cujuslibet hominis me miscere formido l. 7. Jud. 1. Ep. 1. I am loth to have an Hand in any Mans death He therein followed the example of one of his Predecessors St. Martin I. who would never resist tho it was in his Power the orders of the Emperor Constans a Monothelite Heretick who caused him to be carried away from Rome to Constantinople and from thence into banishment And although those who would have opposed that violence called out to him Nulli eorum accommodavi aurem ne subito fierent homicidia Melius Judicavi decies mori quam uniuscujusqu◠sanguinem in terram fundi Epist Mart. 1. ad Theodor. that he should not yield and that he should be well backed yet he would not listen to them for fear it might come to Arms and Slaughter be committed Judging it better said he to die ten times than to suffer the Blood of one single Man to be shed These holy Popes who were so afraid lest the least drop of humane Blood should be spilt were far from deposing Kings and Emperors and giving away their Dominions to others under pretext of the good of Religion as long after them some of their Successors did which was the cause of so many cruel Wars that with Blood and Butchery filled Italy Germany and France it self during the League In this manner the ancient Popes kept within the bounds of their Power purely Spiritual rendering the honour and obedience which they owed to Temporal Powers and especially to their Sovereigns nay even to their Sovereigns who were hereticks and Enemies of their Religion This makes it very apparent what learned Men have so clearly proved that it is no more to be doubted of to wit that these Letters of St. Gregory are
the Iconoclaste Before that saith the same Author Popes were Subject to the Emperors and durst neither judg nor resolve of any thing that concerned them Imperatoribus suberant de iis Judicare vel quicquam decernere non audebat Papa Romanus Thus the Ancient Popes behaved themselves and so much they believed of their Pontifical Authority which does not at all reach the Temporal And to this you may add Onuphr Pavin in vit Greg. VII ex edit Gresser pag. 271. 272. that in the eight first Ecumenical Councils there is nothing to be found but what speaks the compleat submission that is due to Emperors and Kings but nothing that can in the least encroach upon or invalidate the absolute independence of their Temporal Power Now if in some of the Councils which succeeded the Pontificat of Gregory VII Kings have been threatned to be deposed and if an Emperor hath been actually deposed that was not done by the way of decision and though a Council had made a decision as to that yet it must only have been an unwarrantable attempt upon the Right of Princes and could have been of no greater Force than the Bulls whereby it hath been often enough offered at to dispossess them of their States but which have always been condemned and rejected as abusive For after all there will be reason everlastingly to say that which all Antiquity hath believed that the Church her self infallible as she is which the Pope according to the same Antiquity is not hath not received from her heavenly spouse the gift of Infallibility but as to matters purely Spiritual and wholly abstracted from the Temporal and the Kingdom of the World wherein Jesus Christ who hath said my Kingdom is not of this World would never meddle CHAP. XXX What hath always been the opinion of the Gallican Church and of all France as to that The conclusion of this Point and of the whole Treatise HItherto I have made appear what hath been the Judgment and Doctrin of Jesus Christ of his Apostles the Fathers Ancient Popes and of the Councils that is of all venerable Antiquity concerning that Power at least indirect which some would attribute to Popes Now seeing the most Christian Kingdom above all other States of Christendom hath always stuck close to the Ancient Doctrin of the Church which is the solid foundation of their Liberties Therefore it was that all the Bishops of France representing the Gallican Church the faculty of Theology of the great University of Paris so much respected in the World the chief Parliament of France and in imitation of it the rest acting in the Name and by the Authority of the King as Protector of the Canons and holy Decrees have even in this Kingdom maintained the Ancient Doctrin and upon all occasions condemned that pernicious novelty which is contrary to it This I intend briefly to prove The Gallican Church since the settlement of the most Christian Monarchy amongst the Gaules hath always inviolably observed the Rights of the Royalty in her Councils which were so often called by the sole Authority of Clovis and his Successors especially during the first and second race of our Kings And when the Popes would have attempted any thing upon their Temporal the French Bishops have always opposed it with all imaginable force and vigour Of this I shall give you some instances Lotharius Louis and Pepin Sons of Louis the Debonaire instigated by some who had a mind to make their advantage of the dissentions that they had sowed betwixt the Father and his Children Auct Anonym Vic. Ludou Pii rose in Arms against him and found means to engage into their party Pope Gregory IV. Ann. 832. who came in person to their Camp to favour their pretentions The Emperor on the other Hand accompanied with a great part of the Bishops of France failed not to advance with a Powerful Army in May the year following as far as Worms not far distant from the Camp of the Princes his Children Ut si more praedecessorum suorum aderat curâ—tontas necteret moras non sibi occurrendo Immediately he sent them some of his Bishops who exhorted them to return to their duty and who told the Pope in his name that if he was come according to the custom of his Predecessors he much wondered that he had so long delayed to come and wait upon him But when it was discovered that instead of keeping within the bounds of a bare Mediator for reconciling the Children to their Father so as it was believed he was come with a design to Excommunicate the Emperor and his Bishops if they obeyed not his Will and the Princes for whom he thereby manifestly declared himself against the Emperor Then these Bishops without being startled Nullo modo se velle voluntati ejas succumbere sed si Excommunicaturus adveniret Excommunicatus abiret cam aliter se babeas antiquorum Canonum autoritas made it known to him plainly that in that they would no ways obey him and that if he was come to Excommunicate them he should return Excommunicated himself seeing the Authority of the ancient Canons prescribes and ordains the quite contrary to what he attempts The truth is that expression seems to me a little too high but it cannot be denied but that it makes it clearly out to us that the Bishops of France would not at all suffer that the Pope should offer to enjoyn any thing concerning the Government of the State and the Temporal interests which were the Points that occasioned the War and besides that they were very well persuaded that Popes are Subject to the Holy Canons and by consequent to the Councils which have made them Moreover the great clashing that Philip the Fair had with Pope Boniface VIII who openly attacked the Rights of his Crown is very well known and it is also well known what the Gallican Church did for maintaining them and the cautions they took against the Bull unam Sanctam which raised the Popes in Temporals above all Sovereigns It is likewise known what decisions she gave Louis XII for the preservation of his Rights in the difference that he had with Julius II. and what the Clergy of France Assembled at Mante during the League Anno 1591. declared upon occasion of the Bull of Gregory XIV against Henry IV. To the Estates General at Paris 1614 1615. Now if Cardinal Duperron hath in his Speeches said something not altogether consistent with the Doctrin always maintained by the Clergy of France that is but the opinion of one private Doctor who hath oftener than once changed his sentiment and on that occasion transgressed the orders of the Ecclesiastical Chamber of the States General in name of whom he spake and who would have him only represent to the third Estate that it did not belong to them but to the Church to decide that Point of Doctrin concerning the Pontifical Power as it
recessara sit The first That it is not the Doctrin of the Faculty that the Pope hath any Authority over the Temporal of the most Chrishian King that on the contrary it hath always opposed even those who would have that Authority only indirect The other That it is the Doctrin of the same Faculty that the most Christian King hath no other Superior in Temporal affairs but God alone and than that is the ancient Doctrin of the Faculty from which it will never swerve After all these Decrees of the Gallican Church and of the sacred Faculty have always been powerfully supported by the Edicts of the Kings and the thundring sentences of Parliament against all such as ever durst in France maintain and teach that pernicious Doctrin condemned by these Decisions and Censures Of 2 Decemb. 1561.4 Januar. 1594. 7 10 Jan. 1595. 27 May 26 Nov. 1610. 27 July 1614. 2 Jan. 1615. c. which in this Kingdom are reverenced as proceeding from God upon whose word they are grounded So that a Doctrin so well established and which all France look upon as the chief foundation of our Liberties can never be shaken much less overturned by Novelty which whatsoever effort it may make shall never amongst us prevail against Antiquity to which we will always stick close as to the Principle and solid Foundation of true Tradition And therefore also it is that the King as Protector of the Canons of the Councils received in France and of the Gallican Church in particular by his perpetual Edict registred in all the Parliaments not only prohibits all his Subjects and all strangers within his Kingdom to teach or write any thing contrary to the Doctrin contained in the Declaration of the Clergy of France but also commands all secular and regular Professors to submit to and teach it Wherein it is most evident that his Majesty does no more but what many Generals of Orders do who for preserving the uniformity of Doctrin in their Congregation as to Points which they look upon to be of great importance for the good and reputation of their Body oblige their inferiours to maintain and teach certain Opinions which the whole Order hath adopted against others who dispute them Much more ought it to be lawful for so great a King so zealous for Religion and for the Ancient Doctrin upon which are founded the inviolable rights of one of the most August Crowns of Christendom and liberties of the Gallican Church to oblige his Subjects for preservation of Uniformity of Opinion within his Kingdom as to Points of that importance to maintain and teach the Doctrin of the Clergy of France in all things conform to that of the Ancient Church And so much I had to say in this Treatise wherein always following that Principle which both Catholicks and Protestants equally agree to I have held a mean betwixt the two extremes that ought to be shunned One is of those who blinded by the hatred which they have conceived against the Church of Rome from which they have separated would take from the Pope the Prerogatives which Antiquity hath believed were given him by Jesus Christ as Successor of St. Peter The other of those who through a zeal not according to knowledg nay and if I dare say with those Cardinals of Paul III. through a too great compliance with Popes attribute to them what Antiquity instructing us by the Fathers the Councils and even by the most Ancient and most holy Popes themselves have believed they never have received from Jesus Christ Seeing the mean is the place of Virtue and Truth I think one cannot mistake the way when he follows Antiquity for his guide which placing us with it self in that lovely mean will make us condemn our Protestants who are in the first extreme and abandon those who abandon themselves to novelty under the conduct whereof they are fallen into the other extremity Now if it be said to me that these new Authors who have fallen into that which I call the second extreme have only done so out of the great zeal which they have for Religion It will be easie for me to answer with the great Pope St. Leo That many times Men carry on their private interests under a specious pretext of Piety Privatae causae pietatis aguntur obtentu câ—piditatum quisque suarum Religionem habet velut pedissequam St. Leo Epist 25. ad Theodos Imper. and that every one maketh Religion to be the handmaid of his lusts and desires The truth is it may very well be that the lustre of the Purple wherewith at Rome the three Authors who have most highly exalted the Power of Popes by raising it beyond all the bounds that Antiquity prescribed to it were cloathed may have dazled the Eyes of that croud of Modern who have followed them and who for all that what ever they may have expected never received a like reward But not to Judge of the secret motives of their Heart which it belongs to God alone to dive into I had rather Answer with Vincentius Lirinensis one of the most zealous Defenders of the true Doctrin Mos iste semper in Ecclesiâ viguit ut quo quisque religiosior foret Vincent Lerin l. 1. Commonit c. 3. eo promptius novellis adventionibus contrairet It hath always been the custom in the Church that the more of Piety and Religion any one had the more ready he was to oppose all new inventions in Doctrin And to conclude my Work with the excellent words of the same Author I should be glad that Men would think that in composing it I have had no other design but to discharge the duty of a good Catholick by doing what he enjoyns me when he says Christianus Catholicus providebit ut Antiquitati inhaereat quae prorsus non potest ab ulla Novitatis fraude seduci The Catholick Christian will have great care to stick close to Antiquity which cannot be deceived by the artifice of Novelty FINIS Books Printed for and sold by Joseph Hindmarsh at the Black Bull in Cornhill over against the Royal Exchange THE famous History of Auristella Translated from the Spanish The whole Art of Converse Cicero's three Books touching the Nature of the Gods done into English A Breviary of the Roman History written in Latin by Eutropius Translated into English by several young Gentlemen privately Educated in Hatton-Garden The Countermine by Dr. Nalson History of Count Zosimus done into English Love Letters between a Noble Man and his Sister The Doctors Physitian or Dialogues concerning Health Translated out of French The Prerogative of Primogeniture by David Tenner B. D. Navigation rectified by Peter Blackborough The Works of Mr. John Oldham together with his Remains A Discourse of Monarchy as it Relates to the Succession of his Royal Highness James D. of York Seneca's Morals by way of Abstract by Mr. Lestrange Beaufions or a new discovery of Treason in an Answer to the Protestant Reconciler Familiar Epistles of Col. Hen. Martin The Rampant Alderman a Farce Dame Dobson or the Cunning Woman a Comedy Jovial Crew or Merry Beggar a Comedy Venice preserved a Tragedy Sir Hercules Buffoon a Comedy The disappointment a Play An Essay upon Poetry Choice new Songs never before Printed by Tho. Dirfey Gent. The Malecontent being the sequel of the progress of Honesty Vivat Rex a Sermon Preach'd at Bristol on the 9th of Septemb. 1683. by Mr. Kingston The History of the Civil Wars of France Written in Italian by H.C. D'Avila Translated out of the Original The Second Impression whereunto is added a Table FINIS
Matter having been diligently examined Now it is sure adds he with the greatest Confidence imaginable and as if no body could doubt of the truth of what he says without so much as bringing any proof for it the thing being clear in it self It is then says he most certain that that Decree of the Superiority of a Council was made by the Council of Constance without any Examination sine ullo examine I have two things to say to that first that a manifest Falshood was never asserted with so much Boldness for never was there a Question examined nor debated in the Council with greater heat than this as I have already made it appear and as it even appears by the Manuscript of M. Schelstrate For there it is to be seen that before the fourth Session the Deputies of the Nations and the Cardinals after many Contests and Oppositions of the same Cardinals all agreed Habita fuit non modica disceptatio inter D. Regem D. D. Cardinales deputatos nationum c. by a sudden Inspiration of the Holy Ghost in one Judgment concerning that Point of the Superiority of a Council over the Pope who ought to obey it in what relates to Faith and the Extirpation of Schism And he adds that before the fifth Session Die Sabbati 6 Aprilis cum per prius inter D. D. Cardinales Nations altercatum fuisset tandem ordinatum conclusum est c. which was not held till eight days after and wherein according to himself it was defined that the Pope ought to obey the Council in what concerns the Reformation of the Church in the Head and Members there fell out again great Debates betwixt the Cardinals and the Deputies of the Nations How can it then be said so boldly without bogling as Cardinal Bellarmine hath done Nullo facto examine I declare that it is a thing I cannot comprehend after the unquestionable Testimonies that I have before alledged to the contrary The next thing that I have to say against the Answer of Bellarmine is that that word Conciliariter signifies not only as he hath interpreted it the matter in question having been well examined but also being afterwards solemnly decided in a Session of the Council without which nothing is defined In the Council of Constance Votes went by Nations There were at first four the Italian English French and German and afterward the Spanish was added The Deputies of every Nation consulted first severally and then all the Nations communicated their Opinions after which all these Nations held an Assembly where every private Person had liberty to speak and give his Voice yet all the Voices made but one Suffrage for each Nation though they differed in the number of Prelates and Doctors In fine when they were all agreed after much disputing and debate that was no more but preliminary and a necessary Condition to a final Decision which was only made in a General Assembly of Cardinals Archbishops Bishops Generals of Orders Ambassadors of Princes and in a word of the whole Council with great Ceremony after high Mass Litanies and other Prayers in the publick Session held in the Cathedral Church where after that a Cardinal or Bishop having from the Pulpit read the Decrees and Articles framed in the Assembly of the Nations demanded if they approved them it was still free to every one to say what he pleased concerning them And when they had all unanimously said Placet We consent to them as they never failed to do after these previous Deliberations shorter or longer according to the greater or less difficulty of the matters that they had examined then was the Decree authentically made and had its full force and that in the terms of Martin V. is called a Decree made Conciliariter In this manner the Errors of Wickleff were condemned in the eighth Session that of John Huss and the damnable Proposition of John Petit in the fifteenth definitive Sentence pronounced against John XXIII who was deposed in the twelfth and the Decrees of the Superiority of the Council made in the fourth and fifth Session Before that the Council had determined nothing at all nor laid any Obligation upon Believers This the Pope like a very knowing man expresses in the terms he makes use of approving the Council in the five and fortieth Session The Colledge of Cardinals and of the Nations concluded that a certain Book of F. John Falkenberg full of Heresies ought to be condemned The Ambassadors of the King of Poland and of the great Duke of Lithuania who concerned themselves in that Condemnation publickly besought the Pope to condemn it in full Session before the conclusion of the Council according to the Resolution taken by the Cardinals and the Nations and they pressed him to it in so offensive a manner that they protested in name of those Princes their Masters that in case of a refusal they appealed to the next Council Seeing these Ambassadors had spoken so haughtily and in so disobliging a manner under the specious Pretext of an extraordinary Zeal for the Faith and that besides it was not at all to the purpose that the Pope in the present Juncture should give cause to think that he thought himself obliged to submit to what the Cardinals and Nations had determined in their Assemblies he weighed his Words and answered very prudently making it by his Answer appear that on the one hand he was not wanting to comply with his Obligations and on the other that he knew very well how to preserve his Rights and Liberty For he told them that he would always inviolably observe and stick to what the Council had decided in matter of Faith Conciliariter That shews that he had at least as much Zeal for the Faith as these Ambassadors had who pressed him in so disrespectful a manner to condemn a Book And at the same time he adds that he approves all the Decrees which the Council had made authentically and according to the forms Conciliariter but not at all what was done otherwise as if he would give them to understand that tho he be obliged to obey the Council and inviolably to approve and observe what hath been defined in the Sessions yet he is not at all bound to submit to what the Cardinals and Nations might conclude in their Assemblies without the Authority and Approbation of the Council in their Sessions This I think may undeceive M. Schelstrate who pretends that the Pope by speaking so makes it appear that he is above the Council he ought to say above not the Council but the Colledge of Cardinals and the Assemblies of the Nations when they are not authorised in the Sessions And therefore when one of the Ambassadors of the King of Poland would still appeal to the next Council the Pope commanded him Silence upon pain of Excommunication and he did very well because that Appeal was manifestly rash abusive and unwarrantable it being most evident that a
bare Resolution of the Cardinals and Nations without the Authority of the Council could not oblige the Pope And this was the reason why Martin justly provoked by so unworthy a Proceeding made shortly after a Bull Joan. Gerson Tract an quomodo possit appellari à Papa which he caused to be read not in the Council but in a publick Consistory whereby he declares that it is not lawful for any one to appeal from the Holy See or the Pope nor to decline his Judgment in cases of the Faith which as being greater Causes ought to be brought before the Pope and Holy Apostolical See M. Schelstrate alledges these words as his last Argument which he thinks invincible to prove that the Pope is absolutely above all Councils But it is very easie to give him an Answer that hath been an hundred times made without Reply That these Words and others of the like nature ought to be understood with relation to all Churches taken particularly to all Bishops Archbishops Primates and Patriarchs from the Judgment of any of whom Appeals may be made to the Pope and not to any of them from the Judgment of the Pope who is their Superiour not when they are assembled in Body in a General Council representing the whole Church but when they are taken separately and each of them in particular according to these Words of St. Austin in his second Book of Baptism against the Donatists Quis nescit illam Apostolatus prercipatu cuilibâ—t Episcopatui prâ—fereâ—dum L. 2. de Bapt. contra Donatist c. 1. Who knows not that St. Peter by reason of the Primacy of his Apostleship ought to be preferred before any other Episcopacy whatsoever He says before every Episcopacy and not before all Episcopacy in a General Council So that that Bull of Martin V. no more than another of Pâ—as II. which begins Execrabilis cannot absolutely condemn and forbid the Practice but only the Abuse that may be made of an Appeal to a General Council by appealing to it rashly without Reason and a lawful Cause as those Ambassadors of Poland and Lithuania did If notwithstanding all this M. Schelstrate will have the Pope by that Bull absolutely to condemn all Appeals to a General Council which nevertheless it doth not express he may be answered without difficulty that were it so yet it could be of no force because it was not made Conciliariter and facro approbante Concilio nor with the consent of the Church which hath never pretended but that in certain Cases Appeals may be made from the Pope to a Council Quomodo an liceat à summo pontifice appellare ejus Judicium declinare To be persuaded of this he need only read the Treatise written upon that Subject by that learned and holy man John Gerson Chancellor of the University of Paris and the Declaration which that famous University made by an authentick Act to Philip the Fair Decl. Univ. Paris Ann. 1303. mense Septemb. that a Comcil might be called and appealed unto against Boniface VIII and that the University consented and would stick according to the holy Canons to that Convocation and Appeal which the King and all France made to the Council If I mistake not I have hitherto shewed the Weakness or rather the Nullity of what M. Schelstrate objects and that Martin V. solemnly approved the Decrees of the fourth and fifth Session by the Declaration which he made in the last Session and by the Questions that he will have to be put to Hereticks that are converted But though we had not those two so formal Declarations of that Pope would our Author make no account of that of Pope Eugenius concerning which it hath not pleased him to tell us one word Nevertheless he cannot be ignorant that the Council of Basil Basiliense Concilium initio quidem fuit legitimum nam legatus aderat Pontificis Episconpi plurimi Bellar. l. 3. de Eccles Milit. c. 16. l. 2. de Conc. c. 19. which all men even Cardinal Bellarmine himself own to be lawful in the second Session after its first opening renewed these Decrees of Constance which were approved by the Cardinal of St. Angelo Juliano Caesarini who presided therein in name of that Pope Nor do I doubt but that he knows that Eugenius IV. himself in the Bull which he made during the time of the sixteenth Session approved all that the Council till then had done and consequently these Decrees of Constance renewed in the second Session and the Synodal Answer wherein the same Council anew confirms those Decrees and backs them with very strong Reasons which are there specified at length And now I have but two words to say to M. Schelstrate concerning the Approbation of these Decrees First if he be not satisfied with it he must of necessity reckon as null all the Decrees which the first Councils made against the Arians Macedonians and the other Hereticks because it is never to be found that these Councils have been approved neither so formally nor so many times as the Decrees of Constance have been by the Popes Martin V. and Eugenius IV. Again that he ought to know as I have formerly made it appear that in the Ancient Church no other Approbation nor Confirmation was ever known to have been made of Councils by the Popes but the consent which they themselves as well as others were obliged to give to them For if after that the Councils of Nice and Constantinople which were lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost had defined the Consubstantiality of the Word and the Divinity of the Holy Ghost the Popes Silvester and Damasus would not have received these Decrees nor have approved them it is certain that they would have been reputed Hereticks by the whole Church Who can doubt of that And these Councils would have been no less infallible than they were in making their Definitions by the Inspiration of that divine Spirit which is the Soul of all Oecumenical Councils according to these Words Visum est spiritui sancto nobis For to say that all the Authority of Councils is derived from the Pope who may not follow and approve their Decisions concerning the Faith and thereby take from them all their force is an error condemned by the learned Cardinal of Cambray Peter D' Ailly in most significant terms when preaching before the whole Council of Constance and Pope Martin V. in the Year 1417. the second Sunday in Advent about a month after the Election of that Pope he related the whole History of the Council which the Apostles celebrated at Jerusalem and then expressed himself in these Words By that it is manifest Manifestè reprobatur error quorundam perniciosissimus toti Ecclesiae periculosissimus qui adulando potestati Papae ita detrabunt Authoritati sacri Concilii c. that the Authority of deciding and defining ought not to be attributed to the Pope alone but to