have made the Right of Kings known which was opprest before Such a judgement is of great weight coming from a wise King who was truly informed of the businesses of his neighbours Certainly si perito in arte sua credendum est If a skilful Artist must be believed when he speaketh within the compasse of his Art none can decide better what rebellion is and what is not then a great Monarch jealous of the Royal Authority skilled in the duty of Subjects and one that had a long struggling with rebellious spirits This Sentence was pronounced by his Majesty in the year 1615 when France had peace at home and abroad Two years after they had the like testimony of their fidelity from their own King by a Letter of his Majesty written to their Deputies assembled in a Synod at Vitre in these terms Nous avons receu bien volontiers les nouuelles assurances protestations que vous nous auez faites de vostre fidelite obeissance En laquelle persistans comme vous devez que vous auez sait par le passè vous pouuez aussi estre assurez que nous aurons toussours soin de vous maintenir conserver en tous les avantages qui vous ont esté accordez These Letters were printed and published with other Declarations We have received with good satisfaction the new assurances and protestations which you have made unto us of your fidelity and obedience In the which if you persist as you ought and as you have done before you may also be assured that we shall alwayes have a care to maintain and preserve you in all the advantages which have been granted unto you These Letrers bear the Date of May 29. 1617. from Paris Cardinal d'Ossat speaking to Cardinal Aldobrandin Nephew to Clement the VIII about the execrable murther attempted by Iohn Chastel against Henry the IV. of France told him that if Sil y avoit lieu a de tels assassinats ce seroit aux Heretiques a les purchasser executer qu'il a quittez abandonnez qui avoyent a se craindre de luy toutesois ils n'ont rien attenté contre luy ni contre aucun de cinq de nos Roys ses predecesseurs quelque boucherie que leurs Majestez ayent fait desdits Huguenots Card. d'Ossat Epist 8. a Mr. de Velleroy Ian. 25. 1595. pag. 77. such attempts were allowable they were more proper to execute for the Hereticks so he is pleased to call the Protestants whom the King hath left and forsaken and who have reason to stand in fear of him and yet they never attempted any such thing neither against him nor against any of the Kings his predecessors what slaughter soever they have made of the said Hugenots But the greatest testimony of their fidelity is that famous Edict of Nantes which was expressely made to reward them with priviledges for their constant adhering to their King in the long calamities of France Seeing then that the French Protestants were acknowledged good Subjects by their Sovereigne and have deserved by their signal loyalty and long services to the Crowne those few priviledges which they hardly enjoy it is evident how unjust the extraordinary expostulation is That the Roman Catholicks have not the publick allowed exercise of Religion in England as the Protestants have in France There is great reason for that differing dealing The French Protestants have deserved that liberty and more by their constant fidelity and valour having maintained their King with their purses and defended him with their swords so many years against the Jesuitical party who had made a League with strangers to keep him from the Crown and take away his life It is known that the Grandfather of the King now reigning was set upon the Throne by the swords of his Protestant Subjects Let the Jesuitical party of England shew the like service to their Sovereigne whereby they deserve the like recompence What care did they take of the preservation of their Sovereigns lives Queen Elizabeth and King Iames How did they defend their Crowns against the claim and invasion of strangers Did they further or hinder the return of our gracious King now reigning If some few Roman Catholicks have fought for our glorious King and Martyr Charles the I. their whole party fares the better by it now and finds the King a grateful Prince remembring good deeds and forgetting injuries Then the difference of their doctrine in point of Government ought to make a great difference in the allowance of the publick exercise of their Religion The Jesuited Catholicks acknowledge another Sovereigne over their King both for the Spiritual and the Temporal a forreigne power which can dispense them of their Allegiance to him The Protestants acknowledge no Sovereigne above their King and give no jealousie by their doctrine to the Roman Catholick Princes and States under which they live as the Jesuites have done even to Roman Catholicks by whom they have been expelled out of their Dominions as Teachers of a doctrine tending to rebellion Of the troubles that followed who so will give an impartial judgement must look upon the condition of the French Protestants since King Henry IV. bought his peace with the party of the League by the change of his Religion That King seeing himself obliged to provide for the safety of his Protestant subjects by whose armes and long service he had been preserved in his adversities and finally placed upon the Royal Seat gave them some places of strength in several Provinces of the Kingdome for certain years and by an Edict called the Edict of Nantes the free enjoying of their estates and the open exercise of their Religion with some limitation of places Of the priviledges granted them by that Edict there were many infractions especially since the death of Henry the IV. who both by his authority and together by his ancient interest in the Protestant party kept all quiet and preserved them from those wrongs to which the weakest are alwaies obnoxious The term being expired of the grant of those places King Lewis the XIII renewed it for four or five years after which he would have them out of their hands That they were to be restored upon the Kings demand was the opinion of grave Protestants the severest exactors of the obedience of subjects to the Sovereign of my Reverend Father especially who being eminent and respected in the party was a principal means to keep the Protestant Churches on this side Loire in peace and in duty to their King for which his Majesty sent him a considerable summe of money which he refused to take saying that he could be loyal to his King without being bought But the necessity of their keeping those places seemed to be justified by the reason of the first grant which was to preserve them from the violence of their bitter enemies for said they if so many places of safety could not keep us
following Popes exercise over his Son Henry the III. in his long and unfortunate Reign insulting over his weakness and superstition How licentiously did these Wolves tear and raven in England while the publick cry of the oppressed Matth. Paris in vitae Hen. III. people represented unto the King that his Kingdome was become like a Vine whose fence is pulled down and rooted out by the wild Bear These Histories which make the usurpations of the Roman Court to be abhorred yet are set forth by the Jesuite Petra Sancta as examples for all Princes And Petra Sancta Not. in Epist ad Balzac he would have all Kings to imitate King John and Henry the III. of England in their subjection to the Pope He could not have chosen more frequent examples to dehort them from it considering the gulf of miseries which they sunk into by their stooping under the Popes tyranny But they have more reason to follow the example of the next King brave Edward the I. who recovered his own and his Kingdomes liberty by expelling all the Roman Exactours out of England and by his contempt of Rome reigned peaceably and glorious For the Pope who in the Reigns of his Father and Grandfather was thundering continually and cudgelling both King and people never spake a word against this stout King Pope Innocent the III. played with his Spiritual Sword in Germany as well as in England for he excommunicated the Emperour Otho the IV. Platina in Innocent III. Otho iram Pontificis in se concitavit à quo anathemate notatur Imperii titulis privatur and deprived him of the titles of the Empire as Platina speaks warily for Popes cannot take away Kingdomes but onely deny to acknowledge the titles The Emperour Fredericke the II. was worse used by the Popes though much deserving of the Roman See to which he had given the County of Fundi For he was excommunicated and deposed by Pope Honorius the III. and again by Gregory the IX for that Monster Platina of pride and greedinesse when the Emperour was gone on his errand into Palaestina anathematized him raised him enemies in Germany by his preaching Friars Matth. Paris in Vita Hen. III. Reg. Angl. Vspergensis Trithemius and taking advantage of his absence sent an army into Appulia and seised upon the Emperours Lands Twice he shewed himself reconciled with the Emperour and twice again broke with him and excommunicated him but with ill successe to himself For by all these Excommunications and Depositions the Emperour thrived who after a long patience fell upon the Pope made his Interdicts laid upon the Empire to be hissed out and so distressed the Pope by his armies that he died for wrath and sorrow The same Emperour was also excommunicated and Platina Matth. Paris persecuted by Pope Innocent the IV. And when after the Emperours death the armes of his Son prospered in Italy he gave the Kingdome of Sicily to Richard brother to Henry the III. of England Richard not acquainted with the Popes giving of Kingdomes asketh that the Forts and the Treasure and Hostages be given to him Herein wiser if he had stayed there then others who accept that which the Pope cannot deliver I will passe by many Popes that came after who sent their Excommunications no further then the Kingdome of Naples and Sicily and filled Italy with factions that they might fish in troubled waters Let us fix our contemplation a little upon that high pattern of Pontifical vertues Boniface the VIII upon whom Platina bestoweth this Character That Boniface Platina in Bonifacio Bonifacius ille qui Imperatoribus Regibus Principibus Nationibus Populis terrorem potius quam religionem injicere conabatur Quique dare regna auferre pellere homines ac reducere pro arbitrio conabatur aurum undique conquisitum plus quam dici potest sitiens who studied to give terrour rather then religion unto Emperours Kings Princes and Nations and laboured to give and take away Kingdomes drive men away and bring them again according to his pleasure One that was thirsty of goods scraped up from all places more then can be exprest The passages between him and the French King Philip the Fair are known yet perhaps not to all This is the History in short This Pope having a grudge against him about the Collation of Benefices and desiring to pick a quarrel sent to him the Bishop of Pamiers Stella Histoire de France to command him to undertake an expedition to the Holy Land and to threaten him if he refused The Bishop did that errand so malapertly that the King offended committed him to prison The Pope angry demanded the Bishop again and had him and sent this Letter to the King Fear God and keep his Commandements We will have thee to know that thou art our Subject both for the Spiritual and the Temporal That no Collation of Benefices and Prebends belongs to thee And if thou hast the custody of any of them that are vacant we will have thee to reserve the fruits for their Successors And if thou hast granted any Benefices We declare all such Collations null and as far as they are executed de facto We revoke them Those that believe otherwise we hold them for Hereticks These goodly Letters being brought to Paris by a Legate were pluckt from him by the Kings Council and Judges and cast into the fire by the Earle of Artois And to them the King returned this Answer Philip by the Grace of God King of the French to Boniface calling himself Sovereign Pontife but little greeting or rather none at all Let thy most egregious folly know that in temporal things we are subject to no man That the Collation of Churches and Prebends belongs unto us by Royal Right and converting the same to our use during the vacancy That the Collation by us made and to be made shall be valid and that in vertue of the same we will couragiously defend the possessors Those that hold otherwise We hold to be idiots and bereaved of their sense The Pope inraged excommunicates the King but none durst be the publisher or bearer of that Bull. The King assembleth at paris his Knights Barons and Prelates and asketh them of whom they hold their Lordships and the temporal of their Ecclesiastical preferments All answer that they hold them of the King not of the Pope whom they charge with heresie and many crimes The Pope assembleth a General Council as Platina calleth it though it was gathered out of few Platina Countries and by a Decree of that Council depriveth Philip of his Kingdome and giveth it to the Emperour Albert and laboureth to arme Germany and Netherlands against France But that vigorous King sent Nogaret into Italy who by the help of Sciarra Columna whose Family Boniface had cruelly opprest got two hundred horse and surprised the Pope at Anagnia whom they mounted upon a poor jade and brought him prisoner
rebellion is the enterprise of Amboise An. 1560. But the Protestant Religion had subsisted already forty years in France under the crosse And the Professors of the same though numerous had never fought for their Religion but by their constancy in asserting the truth and suffering for it The enterprise of Amboise was a 〈◊〉 quarrel of State not of Religion and â—â—…andâ—â— the Leader was a man most averse from the Protestant Religion The quarrel was this King Francis the II. being about sixteen years of age and younger in understanding then years was altogether governed by some Lords of the House of Guise then lookt upon as strangers and the Princes of the blood were excluded from the businesses of State These excluded Princes plotted to surprise the Court at Amboise and remove strangers from about the Kings person thinking themselves sufficiently warranted by their quality and interest that plot was cried Thuan. Hist lib. 24. Nullos ex conjuratis convictos fuisse alicujus molitionis in Regemaut Reginam sed tantuÌ„ in exteros sui in Aulâ tyrannicé omnia administrabant nempe Guisianos down as rebellious because it did not take effect and being discovered the House of Guise did not fail to make it a matter of High Treason although the great Thuanus depose for the conspirators that None of them was convicted of any attempt against the King and Queen but onely against strangers who governed all things about the Court in a tyrannical way Who so knoweth the interests of the Princes of the blood in France will never call that attempt treason And if they could do so much by the right of their birth their right was never the worse for their being Protestants Francis II. being dead soon after and his Successor Charls the IX being under age the Princes of the blood had more right then before to claim the management of the publick affairs being intrusted with them by the Laws of the Kingdome in the Kings minority at least in conjunction with the Queen Mother And being excluded from it again they raised an Army to recover their right That right is not considered at all by Jesuites that take upon them now a hundred years after to censure their actions but these Princes and their followers are represented onely as Hereticks and Rebels that made Warre against their Sovereigne After the King was out of minority the Princes and their party seeing that the King was much incensed against them and was of a dangerous and implacable nature durst not come neer him and the frequent Massacres made them keep themselves in a posture of defence and repel force by force To be rid of them at once the King used that famous and unparallelled treachery of a feigned peace with the Protestants sealed with the Marriage of his Sister with the Head of their party the first Prince of the blood next to his Brothers Henry King of Navarre and having invited them to the Wedding he slew them in their beds The number of the slain in cold blood on St. Bartholomew's Day and since within the space of three moneths amounted to about a hundred thousand An action publickly commended by the Pope and the Murtherers rewarded with many spiritual graces by his Holinesse That the relicks of the party after that general execution took defensive arms as it is not to be commended it is not to be wondred at neither Men are not Angels and there is nothing more natural then to strive for life The House of Guise having formed the League pretended for the destruction of Heresie but intended 〈◊〉 them for the pulling down of the Royal House King Henry the III. perceiving this too late made â—â—e of Henry King of Navarre then the apparent Heir of the Crown and of his Protestants Army to oppose the League That King being stabbed by a Monk soon after the Head of the Protestant party became lawful King and his Protestant Army the Royal Army yet their arms then though never so just were as much condemned by the Pope as before and as much taxed of rebellion But that praise cannot be denied to their arms that by them as Gods chief instruments the rebellion of the League was defeated and the lawful King preserved raised and setled upon his Throne whilest the Jesuited Zealots exprest their zeal of religion by attempting to stab him and were too good Catholicks to be good Subjects Since our Adversary alledgeth the words of King James of blessed and glorious memory and sets himself forth under the name of Philanax a Lover of the King he must in duty stand to the judgement of that great and judicious King This Sentence his Majesty pronounceth of that cause which this enemy calleth a Defence of the Right of Kings most unanswerable rebellion pag. 14. I never knew yet saith the King that the French Protestants took arms against their King In the first troubles they stood onely upon their defence Before they took arms they were burnt and massacred every where and the quarrel did not begin for Religion but because when King Francis the II. was under age they had been the refuge of the Princes of the blood expelled from the Court even of the Grandfather of the King now reigning and of that of the Prince of Conde who knew not where to take sanctuary For which the present King hath reason to wish them well It shall not be found that they made any other warre nay is it not true that King Henry the III. sent armies against them to destroy them and yet they ran to his help as soon as they saw him in danger Is it not true that they saved his life at Tours and delivered him from an extreme peril Is it not true that they never forsook neither him nor his Successour in the midst of the revolt and rebellion of most part of the Kingdome raised by the Pope and the greatest part of his Clergy Is it not true that they have assisted him in all his battails and helped much to raise the Crown again which was ready to fall Is it not true that they which persecuted the late King Henry the II. enjoy this day the fruits of the services done by the Protestants who are now maligned not for controversies of Religion but because that if their advice was followed the Crowne of the French Kings should no more depend on the Pope there would be no Frenchman in France that is not the Kings Subject there would be no appeal to Rome of beneficial and matrimonial causes and the Kingdome should be no more tributary under colour of Annats and the like impositions Even Cardinal Perron cleareth them from that imputation of rebellion when he saith that the doctrine of the deposition of Kings by the Pope was received in France till Calvin He doth then silently acknowledge that Kings were ill served before and that those whom he calls hereticks having brought forth the Holy Scripture to the publick sight
deponi eligi alius Et Recogn lib. de Laicis sect Addo experientiam laudat Navarrum qui non dubitat affirmare nunquam populum ita potestatem suam in Regem transferre quin illam sibi in habitu retineat ut in certis quibusdam casibus etiam actu recipere possit men the Kings power is from the people because the people makes the King And in temporal Common-wealths if the King degenerate into a Tyrant though he be the Head of the Kingdome he may be deposed by the people and another elected And doth he not praise Navarrus for saying that the people never so transferre their power to the King but they retain it in the habit so that in some cases they may resume it Is it for saying that the Common-wealth may take defensive armes against the King and expel him The Jesuite Suarez taught them that doctrine Suarez Defens Fid lib. 6. c. 19. sect 17. Resp ex sola rei natura spectatam prout fuit apud Gentiles nunc est inter Ethnicos habet potestatem se desendendi à Tyranno Rege sect 15. Si Rex legitimus tyrannice gubernat regno nullum aliud sit remedium nisi Regem expellere deponere poterit Resp tota publico communi consensu civitatem procerum Regem deponere The Common-wealth saith he considered in her meer nature and as it was among the Gentiles and as it is now among the Pagans hath the power to defend her self against a Tyrant If a lawful King governe tyrannically and that there be no other remedy for the Kingdome but to expel and depose the King the whole Common-wealth by the publick and common consent of the Cities and the Peers may depose the King Or do the Jesuites inveigh against them for making a formal and aggressive Warre against the King They have no reason for it seeing that the Jesuite Mariana hath set them down the whole course which they have followed The readiest Mariana lib. 6. de Rege cap. 6. pag. 59. 60. Expedita maximé tuta via est si publici conventus facultas detur communi consensu quid statuendum sit deliberare fixum ratumque habere quod communi sententia steterit Monendus in primis Princeps erit atque ad sanitatem revocandus c. Qui si medicinam respuat neque spes ulla sanitatis relinquatur sententia pronuntiata licebit Reip ejus imperium detrectare primum quoniam bellum necessario concitabitur ejus defendendi consilia explicare expedire arma pecunias in belli sumptus imperare populis si res feret neque aliter se Resp tueri possit eodem defensionis jure ac vero potiori authoritate propria Principem publice hostem declaratum ferro perimere and the safest way saith he if the people may meet in a publick Assembly is to deliberate by common consent what is to be done and then to keep inviolably that which is agreed on by common consent The Prince must first be admonish't and exhorted to mend But if he refuse the remedy and there be no hope of his mending the sentence being once pronounced against him it will be lawful for the Common-wealth to refuse to obey him And because a Warre must necessarily follow the counsels how to maintain it must be set down armes must be quickly provided and taxes laid upon the people to bear the expences of the Warre And if it be requisite and the Common-wealth cannot otherwise maintain it self it shall be lawful both by the right of defence and more by the Authority proper to the people to declare publikely the King to be the common enemy and then kill him with the sword Do the Jesuites look with horrour upon that Court of Justice erected to try the King Let them remember that they had Mariana's warrant for it That the Common-wealth from which the Royal Power hath its original may when the case requires Mariana Ibid. Certe à Rep. unde ortum habet regia potestas rebus exigentibus Regem in jus vocari posse si sanitatem respuat Principatu spoliari Neque ita in Principem jura potestatis transtulit ut non sibi majorem reservarit potestatem it bring the King to judgement and if he refuse to mend deprive him of his Sovereignty For the Common-wealth hath not so transferred the right of power unto the Prince but it hath reserved a greater power to it self And why doth our Adversary an earnest defender of the Jesuites exclaim so much against the abominable parricide acted upon our Sacred Sovereigne seeing that the people which made Warre against him held him to be a Tyrant and Lessius lib. 2. de Iustitia Iure cap. 9. dubio 4. scribit Verum Principem qui tyrannus est ratione administrationis non posse à privatis interimi quamdiu manet Princeps primum à Repub. vel comitiis Regni vel alio habente authoritatem esse deponendum hostem declarandum ut in ipsius personam liceat quicquam attentare it is the currant opinion of the Jesuites that a tyrant may be killed by any private man A true Prince saith Lessius who is a tyrant by reason of his administration cannot be killed by a private person as long as he remaineth a Prince but he must first be deposed and declared enemy by the Common-wealth or the Parliament of the Kingdome or some other having Authority that it may be lawful to attempt any Suarez contra Regem Mag. Brit. lib. 6. cap. 4. sect 14. Post sententiam lutam domnino privatur regno ita ut non possit justo titulo illud possidere ergo ex tunc poterit tanquam tyrannus tractari consequenter à quocunquè privato poterit intersici thing against his person And Suarez saith to the same purpose that after the Sentence given against a King he is altogether deprived of his Kingdome so that he can no more possesse it with a just title Wherefore from thenceforth he may be used like a tyrant and killed by any private person Neither ought the Jesuites to find fault with the publick thanksgiving for murthering the King and making of the thirtieth of Ianuary a Thanksgiving Day seeing that the Jesuites of Paris shewed the way for that to the Rebels in England for in the time of the French League they made Solemne Thanksgivings for the murthering of their King as Pope Sixtus the V. did since at Rome with a vehement oration in which he applieth a Prophesie of the Incarnation of the Sonne of God unto that Kings Murther So much the late Rebels of England have learned of you Fathers Jesuites and no reason have you to chide your Scholars for following your doctrine and example how far you are yet before them I will shew before I have done with you For they do not make the crown of their Kings obnoxious to be kickt down by the
with his whole power against Queen Elizabeth and had raised a great Army for that expedition But when Stukely came to Sebastian he found him possess'd with a new project to help a Moor King of Fez against another King who kept him out of possession and to get the Kingdome from them both To that War he invited Stukely promising that presently after that work done which he represented to him most easie they should go together to the War against England and Ireland So they sailed over into Africa where Sebastian and his whole Army were destroyed and with him Stukely and the Popes Italian Souldiers were cut in pieces A deliverance of England ever to be remembred with praise and admiration So let thine enemies perish O Lord. This Pope had a great hand in that unparallelled villany wrought by the marriage of Henry King of Navarra with the Sister of Charles the IX of France A marriage which Pius the V. would never consent unto by reason of their difference in Religion But when his Successor Gregory the XIII was told by the Cardinall of Lorrain that this marriage was intended as a trap to destroy Henry and his Protestant party he presently gave his dispensation for the celebrating of it and encouraged the design The horrible massacre which attended the jollity of that marriage was received at Thuanus Rome with triumphant expressions of publick joy And Cardinal Vrsin was sent Legat into France to praise the Kings piety and wisdom in that great action and to bestow blessings and spiritual graces upon the King and the Actors of that fearful Tragedy The Court of Rome might well praise what themselves had procured if not contrived and truly the plot hath an Italian garb and looks not like a production of the French soil Not long after this Pope sent to Henry the III. of France and to his people Indulgences for millions of years which were to be obtained by making processions to four Churches in Paris and by being zealous and diligent in the extirpation of heresies that is in his style to extermine the Protestants The male line of the Kings of Portugal being extinct this Pope laid a claim to the Kingdome as depending from the holy See and would have the Nation to have taken Arms for him against the heirs from the females But his claim was hissed out with great scorn In the year 1580. this Pope sent an Italian called San Iosepho with some Italian Troops into Ireland to joyn with the Irish Rebells When they were demanded by a message from the Lord Deputy who they were and what they came for they answered Some that they were sent by the most holy Father the Pope and some from the Catholick King of Spain to whom the Pope had given Ireland because Queen Elizabeth had justly forfeited her Title to Ireland by her heresie A doctrine which at the same time was preach'd in England and Ireland by Jesuites and other Seminary Priests with great boldness and vehemency till the Queen and her Councell perceiving what danger the State was running into by these mens activeness and impunity Campian and some others sent by the Pope on that errand were apprehended And being examined they obstinately defended the Popes authority over the Queen and maintained that she was no Queen as being lawfully deposed by the Pope upon which they were condemned and executed That Crown of Martyrdom the Pope procured to his Confessors And the greater the number is of those Martyrs that the Papists muster the more they exaggerate the Popes cruelty to his truest Vassalls For could the Pope expect that persons sent to perswade the people to dispossess and kill their Sovereign should have other dealing from the hand of Justice The principal Article of the late Papal Creed is that which Pius the V. sets forth in his Bull against the Queen that God hath made the Bishop of Rome Prince over all people and all Kingdoms But the English Papists are taught that besides that general right over all Kingdomes the Pope hath a peculiar right over England and Ireland as his proper Dominions This is Bellarmins doctrine which he hath made bold to maintain unto King James himself The King Bellarm. lib. cui Titulus Tortus pag. 19. Rex Anglorum duplici jure subjectus est Papae uno communi omnibus Christianis ratione Apostolicae potestatis quae in omnes extenditur juxta illud Ps 44. Constitues eos Principes super omnem terram Altero proprio ratione recti dominii of England saith he is subject to the Pope by double right The one by reason of his Apostolick power which extends over all men according to that Charter Ps 44. Thou shalt establish them Princes over all the earth The other proper by a right dominion Then he pleadeth that England and Ireland are the Churches dominions the Pope the direct Lord and the King his Vassal This then being become an Article of Religion in which the English Papists are instructed and this in consequence that if the Pope disallow the King he is no more King of England but an Usurper and must be used accordingly Let any man judge who hath some equity and freedome of judgement left whether a prudent Prince and Council of State ought to suffer such an instruction to be given to the people Truly the more Religion is pretended for that doctrine and the practice of Rebellion obtruded as a commandement of the Church the more it concernes the loyal Magistrate to oppose it vigorously Pope Sixtus the V. to favour the enterprise of Philip the II. upon England renewed the Excommunication of Queen Elizabeth pronounced by Pius the V. deprived her verbo tenus of her Kingdome absolved her subjects from all Allegiance to her and published a Croisada against her as against the Turk giving plenary Indulgence to all that would make warre against her But the Popes Curses provoked Gods blessings upon the Queen who might say as David when Shimei cursed him The Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day All the storms raised against England were blown over without harme The great preparations of Spain served onely to disable it and secure England And the many attempts against the Queens life upon that Bull contributed to her safety by manifesting to the World the wickednesse of Rome and the pernicious effects of the Roman principles For which I might produce the Examinations and Confessions of many that suffered for attempting to murther the Queen but I will bring but one for all William Parry acknowledged that he had promis'd at Rome to kill the Queen about which he was most troubled in his conscience till he lighted upon Dr. Allens book which taught that Princes excommunicate for heresie were to be deprived of Kingdome and life Which book saith he did vehemently excite me to prosecute my attempt This Popes Excommunications had more effect in France for after that he had excommunicated King Henry the
all his false turns But both my Readers and I have better businesses then to heap up dung or search all the Impostures of a Novice of the Iesuites For the end he brings some rules of Law concerning the nature of the English Monarchy which if he had studied well he had never taken upon him to defend the doctrine of the Iesuites which is inconsistent with them For they allow not that which he affirmeth That the Monarchy of England can do no homage having no superiour and that the Crown of England is independent and his jura Regalia are holden of no Lord but the Lord of heaven Bellarmine saith the clean contrary and makes the Pope Sovereigne of England by double right as we heard before Yet this Scholar of the Iesuites may give Bellarmines sense to that assertion that the Crown of England is independent for holding with his Masters that the Crown of England belongeth to the Pope he will say also that it is independent and oweth homage to none but God meaning that the Pope the right Sovereigne oweth homage for it to none but God The man being evidently a Scholar of the Jesuites cannot but be instructed in the doctrine of equivocations about which Tolet Tolet lib. 4. Instruct Sacerd. cap. 21. Aliquando uti licet aequivocatione decipere audientem ut cum Iudex petit juramentum ab aliquo ut dicat crimen vel proprium vel alienum si omnino est occultum jurare cogatur utatur aequivocatione puta Nescio intelligendo intra se ut dicam tibi vel simile Et lib. 5. c. 38. lib. 4. c. 21 22. gives large instructions in his book of the Instruction of Priests saying expresly That it is lawful sometimes to use equivocations and to deceive the hearer And Sanchez tells us in what case it is lawful to equivocate There is a just cause saith he to Sanch. oper Mor. l. 3. c. 6. num 19. Causa jure utendi his amphibologiis est quoties id necessarium aut utile est ad salutem corporis honorem tes familiares tuendas use these equivocations whensoever it is necessary or useful for the preservation of body honour or estate Since then the sect and Religion of the Jesuites which subjecteth the Crown of England unto the Pope cannot subsist in England without palliating that criminal doctrine with equivocation They finde it necessary for the preservation of body honour and estate to profess that the Monarchy of England can do no homage having no superiour and that the Crown of England is independent but to whom that independant Crown belongs that they will reserve in their thoughts Or if they say they will be true to the King they will by the King understand the Pope or the King of Spain to whom the Pope gave the Kingdome of England fourscore years ago and never recalled that gift since Wherefore if this Gentleman appear in Print again or any of his confreres for him about this point of obedience we must desire him to speak more home before he can justifie himself to be a true Philanax Anglicus and a good English subject of his Majesty To that end let him declare that he acknowledgeth the following Articles as true and just and is ready to subscribe unto them I. The Kings Most Excellent Majesty Charles the II. hath no superiour on Earth de jure in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland and other His Majesties Dominions II. All Roman Catholicks born in these His Majesties Dominions are his subjects de jure and of none else although they have taken the Orders of the Church of Rome or have a General of some Religion to whom they have sworn obedience III. The Doctrine of Cardinal Bellarmine is false that the King of England is subject to the Pope by double right besides his pretended subjection in matters spiritual IV. The Pope hath no power to deprive Kings of their Kingdoms or any way to dispose of their Crowns or their Lives V. The Pope cannot absolve the subjects of His Majesty King Charles the II. or of any of His Successors from the Oath of their Allegiance Neither are they now absolved from it by any precedent Decree from the Popes VI. A King declared heretick or excommunicate by the Pope is not thereby disabled from exercising his Kingly jurisdiction VII The excommunicating or depriving of a King by the Pope doth not exempt that Kings natural subjects from the duty of their Allegiance VIII King John had no power to give his Kingdome to the Pope without the consent of his Peers and Commons Neither is that Contract of any validity IX A Priest having learned in Confession a Conspiracy against the Kings life ought to discover it to the King or his Councel X. The Peers and Commons of England and other His Majesties Dominions have no power to judge their King much less to depose him or put him to death or to choose another King or to alter the Government of the State He that will refuse to subscribe these Articles and openly profess his consent unto them cannot justifie his love and fidelity to the King and is altogether unfit to charge the Protestants with rebellious tenets Vacuum culpa esse decet qui in alium paratus est dicere He that is in an error cannot justifie himself but by forsaking it That yeilding is glorious and to be overcome by the truth is a great victory Without such a justification lessons of loyalty given by a Iesuite are unsuitable and of as little effect as a Lecture of Chastity preach'd by an allowed Curtizan of Rome JOH VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CAROLE qui Latias artes fulmina bruta Et Capitolini contemnis Vejovis iras Macte manumissus coelesti lumine Princeps Lumine Romuleas tibi dispellente tenebras Assertamque sacro capiti firmante coronam Dum trepidi Reges sancti luminis orbi Serva Quirinali submittunt colla tyranno Tu liber specta stantes ad fraena Monarchas Stratorum officio succollantesque cathedrae Augustos lixas mox flexo poplite curvos Turpia purpureo libantes oscula socco Erige tu curvos rectus fratresque doceto Quos Regum Pater agnoscit Natosque Deosque Quà m male prostituat divum Rex sanctus honorem Tarpeiam lambens crepidam solosque pudendum Excussisse jugum libertatique litasse Gnaviter amplexos coelestia lumina Reges FINIS ERRATA PAge 8. line 17. Galileo p. 9. l. 5. put out which p. 11. in the margent l. 10. tenerentur p. 19. l. 12. matter p. 24. l. 14. Popes p. 26. l. 10. by the preaching l. 12. oppressing l. opposing p. 30. l. ult Francis the II p. 31. l. 7. Iesuites p. 33. l. 20. Henry the IV. l. 22. because p. 3â— l. â—4 the ordinary l. 13. any of five Kings p. 49. l. 28. unequitable l. equitable p. 53. l. 13. stonie the just p 87. l. 13. frequent l. pregnant p. 113. l. 24. Pope p. 115. in the margent 1. 6. non sine manibus p. 124. l. put out persons put letters p. 128. l. 25. Mutius p. 137. l. 26. depose
use of the Edition of Iena An. 1600 tom 2. omnium operum D. Mart. Lutheri Treatise De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae The first cap. De Sacramento Baptismi Ab omnibus hominum legibus exempti sumus libertate Christiana nobis per Baptismum donata that is We are freed from all humane Laws by the Christian liberty given to us by Baptisme I may confidently affirm that these words are not to be found either in that Chapter or in the whole Treatise And if the Reader will be so inquisitive as to look upon the place he shall find it so There Luther complains of the ceremonies wherewith the Pope hath clogged the Sacrament of Baptisme and maintaineth that neither Bishop nor Pope nor Angel hath power to impose such humane additions upon the conscience of Christians to be obeyed as Laws And yet if they be imposed he will have Christians to bear with them keeping still to themselves that liberty of conscience to remember that such things are wrongfully imposed and taking heed either to justifie the tyranny or to murmure against it This is the sense of the whole discourse of Luther But he saith no where that the Christian liberty given to us by Baptisme exempts us from the Laws of men This is a meer fiction So is his second allegation out of the same book cap. de Matrimonio Scio nullam Remp. Legibus feliciter administrari He makes Luther say I know that no State is happily governed by Lawes but there is not one word of that in the whole Chapter of Matrimony nor in the whole Treatise And Luthers opinion was as farr from that Tenet as the East is from the West and the Pope and his Conclave from Christ and his Apostles Shall we wonder that the Pope alters the words of Scripture making the Text say she shall bruise thy heel in stead of he to transfer the victory of Christ over the Devil unto Christs Mother or that he giveth to Scripture a contrary sense turning Feed my sheep into Depose Kings and dispose of Kingdoms when such men as our Adversary take upon them to forge what words and sense they will and to father them upon whom they please Quid Domini facient audent cum talia fures The third allegation is out of the Chapter de Ordine in the same Treatise the words as our Adversary recites them are these Turpe enim est iniquiter servile Christianum hominem qui liber est aliis quam coelestibus divinis legibus subjectum esse that is It is a foul thing and wickedly servile that a Christian man who is free should be subject to any other but the divine and heavenly laws But this Gentleman or he from whom he hath borrowed these allegations hath basely corrupted and falsified this passage putting legibus in stead of traditionibus which alters the sense altogether and changeth the question for Luther disputeth against imposing unnecessary traditions in Religion as necessary to salvation and would not have a Christian to subject himself in that kind to any tradition but such as are divine and heavenly But this corrupter represents him as refusing subjection to civil laws and temporal powers Can there be a more ungodly and odious imposture And how doth this mans inference follow upon Luther's discourse So that it is most plain saith he that it was not Luther ' s design onely to pull down Monarchy but all other kinds of civil Government and to extirpate all humane laws Certainly that inference depends no more upon Luther's discourse then the new stars of Galilee upon the Aphorisms of Hippocrates It is a good sport to see how incensed this Gentleman is against Luther for exhorting Kings and Princes to fall upon the Pope and his Cardinals and to fulfill the Prophecy of Rev. 17. That the Kings of the earth shall strip the great harlot naked devour her self and burn her with fire Which he exagerates as high treason because he acknowledgeth the Pope for his Sovereign and the King of kings whom none can resist or call to account without incurring the crime of Rebellion For his other allegations against Luther he shall not have the luck to be believed upon his word after I have laid open his infidelity in that kind He that hath leisure or curiosity enough may search the places and examine whether they be true or false neither of which concerns us Yet a judicious view of the affairs of Germany at that time and of the nature of Sovereignty and Subjection in the Empire of which I intend to say something in the next Chapter which will make his hardest expressions to seem less strange It is certain that he writ against King Henry the VIII most slovenly Yet observe that Henry the VIII was not his King That he said nothing against the obedience due to him by his subjects and that he made amends to the King since and cryed Peccavi He was then less to blame then the Jesuite Sander who called Sander lib. de Schismate Anglicano the same King his natural Prince another Mahomet the root of sin and a most impious and sacrilegious Tyrant and Queen Elizabeth Lupam Anglicanam the English wolf-bitch and made them no amends for it This testimony cannot be denied to Luther that he opposed rebellion most vigorously as it may be seen Sleidan lib. 5. ad an 1525. Id. lib. 14. ad an 1542. in his Epistle to the Boors that rose in arms and by his Sermon in the Camp both pregnant for the obedience of subjects to their Princes of which Sleidan giveth a faithfull account a better Author then our Adversary or Cochlaeus Luther's enemy The first and greatest instrument of the Helvetian Reformation was Zuinglius out of whose books the Adversary picks some passages to exhort the Switzers and Germans to defend their Religion against the Emperour If there had been no quarrel of Religion at that time yet he would have exhorted them to stand for their liberties against the Emperour For the Switzers having shaken off the yoke of the Empire two hundred years before It is no marvel that Zuinglius was not carefull to exhort his Countreymen and neighbours to obedience to the Emperour the perpetual underminer of the State which he lived in Observe that the Authours that write of the power of Princes and of the duty of subjects determine it according to the form of the States in which they live and so no wonder that Zuinglius a Switzer acknowledgeth no successive power but conceiveth all Princes to be eligible and deposable by the Commonwealth And that Calvin and Beza living in an Aristocratical State shewed also in their Writings more inclination towards that kind of Government So the German and Italian Writers are for a mixt and much limitted Government The English and French for Monarchy with certain Laws And if the Turks and Muscovites could make Books they would write for the Despotical and unlimitted power Our
of the Court of Rome but Luther continued till death about thirty years destroying the Popes interests in Germany and all parts of Europe and neither Pope nor Caesar could touch him Wonderfull are the ways of Gods justice that the Pope by fomenting factions in the Empire and breaking the Emperours power did prepare safety and facility for his enemies in the following ages to make that great breach in his Kingdome and give that mortal wound to his power of which it shall bleed till it dye of it Against the Helvetian Reformation the Adversary saith nothing onely he arrayeth Zuinglius in a swaggering Pag. 3. swash buckler habit as if he had wrought Reformation with sword and buckler yet it was made quietly the preaching of the Gospel and began at Zurick in the year 1522. When Zuinglius was censured by the Bishop Sleidan of Constance his Ordinary for oppressing the Romish errours he set sorth Theses containing his doctrine and the Senate of Zurick called together all the Clergy of the Canton to confer about Religion and requested the Bishop to be present or send some authorized by him The Bishop sent Johannes Faber his Vicar General in whose presence the Consul invited all the assistants if they had any thing to oppose unto the Theses of Zuinglius that they would speak And Zuinglius having addrest the same invitation to the Vicar in particular the Vicar answered that treating of Controversies was not fit for that place and that it belonged to the Councel which should assemble shortly After that many words had past between them when none appeared that had any thing to oppose the Senate made an Edict that in all their dominions the Gospel should be purely taught out of the Books of the Old and New Testament and that humane traditions should be banisht This was obeyed and Reformation was established without either sword or buckler Neither do I read that Zuinglius was in armes till eleven years after that five Gantons of contrary Religion suddenly invaded that of Zurick and put Zurick men to a necessary but disorderly defense in which Zuinglius was slain The Switzers had cantoned themselves in the year 1315. which was 200 years before the Reformation Were I as unsincere as my Adversary I should charge the Roman Religion which then reigned with that change of State From Zuinglius the Adversary passeth to Calvin as the head of the French Reformation wherein he sheweth his great ignorance for the Reformed Religion was spread in France twenty years before Calvin was settled in Geneva and well nigh assoon as in Germany The beginning of which must not be ascribed to one Hugo whom our Adversary knowsnot nor any body else But the truth is that it was in France long before it was in Germany ever since the errours and tyranny of the Court of Rome began to be opposed by the Valdenses whose relicks after long persecutions by fire and sword remained in the Vale of Cabrieres and Marindol in Provence It was from thence that Reformation was propagated incouraged by the happy progresses of Luther and Zuinglius Wherefore the Popes creatures perceiving whence that blow came upon the Roman Court never left solliciting Francis the I. of France till they got an Edict for the extirpating of them which was executed with the utmost rigour And it was not for Religion that they were thus butchered but meerly to make a sacrifice to the pride and cruelty of Rome For as for their doctrine that excellent King Lewis the XII liked it so well that to some that represented it to him and would incense him against them He answered that they were better Christians then he and his Kingdome This was then the true Origine of the Reformation of France the doctrine of the Valdenses preserved in the relicks of their descent a doctrine perfectioned since into a more Orthodox Confession conformable to the Confessions of other Protestant Churches So Calvin had no hand in that Reformation and no more had he with that of Geneva or in turning that State into an Aristocracy as this Adversary upbraids him My business being to vindicate Reformation from the charge of rebellion I must take from the Reformers of Geneva that aspersion that they expelled their Bishop and that they altered the constitution of that State and both these ascribed unto Calvin It is a tradition received in England for a currant and undoubted truth And upon that ground many fine and judicious inferences are built But it is like the stories of the Phenix and the singing of Swans before their death never the truer for the curious similies and ingenious moralities that have Epistola Benedicti Turretini ad Scultetum in Annal. reformationis An. 1529. been spun out of that stuffe What credit can we give to Histories of things happened in the Indies two thousand years ago if in things done to lately and so near us gross mistakes go for uncontrollable truths I say it is utterly false thar Calvin was one of the planters of Reformed Religion at Geneva False also that he or the Reformers of Geneva turned their Bishop out of doors And false also that the Bishop went away upon the quarrel of Religion Farel Froment and Viret were they that wrought under God the conversion of the City by their Sermons and by a publick conference with the Friars and Clergy of Geneva there being then no Bishop in that Town who was fled eight moneths before seeing his conspiracy discovered to oppresse the liberties of the City by the help of the Duke of Savoy for which his Secretary was hanged after he was gone the said Bishop being hated before for the rape of a Virgin and many adulteries with Citizens Wives And it is most to be noted that they who after his flight See the book entituled A view of the Government c. by Iohn Durel reformed the Civil Government were strong Papists and mainly opposed the Reformation of Religion To which something like was seen in England not far from that time For the same English Bishops that most earnestly served Henry the VIII to make him acknowledged the Supreme Head of the Church of England Tonstal Gardiner Bonner c. were afterwards the greatest opposers of the Work of Reformation and the fiercest persecutors of the Protestants That the Church Discipline of Geneva was constituted without a bishop is a matter of another nature Their Successors that continue it so to this day are of age let them speak for themselves It is enough for my present purpose that I have vindicated the Introduction of Reformation into that State from the crime of rebellion As long as their Bishop lived they could not have another and durst not receive him being manifestly convicted of selling the Cities liberty to the Duke of Savoy And when the Bishop died they had used themselves to live without a Bishop The first proof of our Adversary to indite the French Reformation of
armes with the Kings you may easily judge what loss and what weakning of the party that will be How many of our Nobility will forsake yâ—u some out of treachery some out of weakness Even they who in an Assembly are most vehement in their votes and to And so it proved shew themselves zealous are altogether for violent waies are very often they that will revolt and betray their brethren They bring our distressed Churches to the hottest danger and there leave them going away after they have set the house on fire If there be once fighting or besieging of our towns whatsoever the issue may be of the combat or the siege all that while it will be hard to keep the people animated against us from falling upon our Churches which have neither retreat nor defense And what order soever the Magistrates of contrary Religion take about it they shall never be able to compass it I might also represent unto you many reasons out of the state of our Churches both within and without the Kingdome to shew you that this stirring of yours is altogether unseasonable and that you set sail against wind and tyde But you are clear-sighted enough to see it and to consider in what posture your neighbours are and from whence you may look for help whether among you the vertue and the concord and the quality of the heads is grown or diminisht Certainly this is not the time when the troubling of this pool can heal our diseases And certain it is that if any thing can help so much weakness it must be the zeal of Religion which in the time of our fathers hath upholden us when we had less strength and more vertue But in this cause you shall find that zeal languishing because most of our people believe that this evil might have been avoided without breach of conscience Be ye sure that there will be alwaies disunion among us every time that we shall stir for civil causes and not directly for the cause of the Gospel Against that it is objected that our enemies have determined our ruine that they undermine us by little and little that it is better to begin now then to stay longer Truly that man should be void of common sense that doubted of their ill will And yet when I call to mind our several losses as that of Lectoure Privas and Bearn I finde that we ourselves have contributed to them and it is no wonder that our enemies take no care to remedy our faults and that they joyn with us to do us harm But hence it follows not that we throw the helve after the hatchet and set our house on fire our selves because others are resolved to burn it or take in hand to remedy particular losses by means weak to redress them but strong and certain to ruine the general God who hath so many times diverted the counsels taken for our ruine hath neither lost his power nor altered his will We shall find him the same still if we have the grace to wait for his assistance not casting our selves headlong by our impatience or setting our mind obstinately upon impossibilities Take this for certain that although our enemies seek our ruine they will never undertake it openly without some pretence other and better then that of Religion which we must not give them For if we keep our selves in the obedience which subjects owe to their Sovereign you shall see that while our enemies hope in vain that we shall make our selves guilty by some disobedience God will give them some other work and afford us occasions to shew to his Majesty that we are a body usefull to this State and put him in mind of the signal services that our Churches have done to the late King of glorious memory But if we are so unfortunate that while we keep our selves in our duty the calumnies of our enemies prevail at least we shall get this satisfaction that we have kept all the right on our side and made it appear that we love the peace of the State Notwithstanding all this Gentlemen you may and ought to take order for the safety of your persons For whereas his Majesty and his Counsel have said often that if you separate your selves he will let our Churches enjoy peace and the benefit of his Edicts it is not reasonable that your separation be done with the peril of your persons And whenever you petition for your safe dissolution I trust it will be easily obtained if you make possible requests and such as the misery of the time and the present necessity can bear In the mean while you may advise before you part what should be done if notwithstanding your separation we should be opprest that order your prudence may finde and it is not my part to suggest it unto you If by propounding these things unto you I have exceeded the limits of discretion you will be pleased to impute it to my zeal for the good and preservation of the Church And if this advice of mine is rejected as unworthy of your consideration this comfort I shall have that I have discharged my conscience and retiring my self into some foreign Countrey there I will end those few daies which I have yet to live lamenting the loss of the Church and the destruction of the Temple for the building whereof I have laboured with much more courage and fidelity then success The Lord turn away his wrath from us direct your Assembly and preserve your persons I rest c. From Sedan Feb. 12. 1621. When this Letter was read in the Assembly some arose immediately and left it others continued to sit and by their sitting turned these warnings into prophecies This Epistle will give to the judicious Reader an insight into the affairs of that time and State and together into the present question which is altogether of fact whether and how far the French Protestants may be taxed of disobedience against their Sovereign For it is justified by this relation that when some of them resisted they had the greatest temptation to it that a just fear can present unto flesh and bloud and yet that even then they were disavowed by the best and the most of their Church and exhorted to their duty by their Divines which in points of conscience are the representative persons of a party when they are solemnly met and this was the sense of the National Synod of which this eminent Divine was President but two moneths before Here every wise and charitable Christian should lay David's doctrine to heart Psal 41. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blessed is he that considers with intelligence and judgement him that is in a low condition It is easie for us that enjoy prosperity under a gracious King to determine the point of passive obedience not so for them that groan under the sad burden of the Cross Christian equity ought to pity those that are exposed to the sad counsels of terrour and despair I
former subjection From Holland the Adversary saileth into Scotland and objects to us the Maxims of Knox and Buchanan and the disorders of that time Of which I have said enough in the Chapter before Of the Work of Reformation in England and the publick actions of that age upon that interest he speaks very scornfully saying that the Sect of Wicleff lay pag. 71. strangled in the cradle till King Edward the VI. his dayes when some ends of it were taken up again and set out with more ostentation then ever in that Princes minority and what rare effects of obedience were by that means produced in Queen Maries time who brought them up again to the test may be easily read in our Chronicles Wherein it is plain that in the poor five years of her Reign there was de facto more open and violent opposition and rebellion made by her own subjects then Queen Elizabeth had in forty five years or any Prince before or since the Wicleffian doctrine till the same smothered fire broke out at last in good King Charles his time to his utter ruin and the shaking of the very foundation of his Monarchy Is this spoken like a most observant Son and in every honest mans esteem a pious reverend and learned Priest of the Church of England as this Author is tearmed in the Publishers Epistle to the Reader Certainly a Son and a Priest of the Church of England would never have derived from Wickleff but from the Holy Scripture the Religion of the Church his Mother nor ascribed to her Religion the cause of the late horrid rebellion We see what a Son and Priest of the Church he is the tree is known by his fruit What better figs can be gathered from such a thorn What better grapes from such a bramble And what is that doctrine of Wickliffe which he imputes to the Protestants to the English especially Impios nullum dominium habere That the ungodly pag. 70. can have no right of dominion Was that the doctrine set out with ostentation in Edward the VI. his dayes Or was any of the Protestants found tainted with that doctrine when Queen Mary burnt them which this man calls bringing them to the test Sure it was not upon that ground that some oppositions were made against that Queen It is a wonder that she met with no more considering how her Father had declared by Act of Parliament her Mothers Marriage unlawful and her self incapable of the Crown and had miserably incumbred the Title and Succession of his Children That there was more open and violent opposition against her in her five years reigne from her own Subjects then Queen Elizabeth had in forty five years it is because they that went to question her Title went to work plainly above boord but no secret Jesuitical conspiracies to stabbe or poyson her as against Queen Elizabeth The means she made to reduce her dissenting subjects in Religion when they made no opposition against her was to make bon-fires of them Three hundred of those burnt-offerings she sacrificed unto God A farre greater number in her poor five years then that of the Popish Martyrs of disobedience since the death of that Queen now above a hundred years For no Papist was executed for his Religion all for disobeying the Laws of the Land and many of them for High Treason It is known that Queen Mary got the Crowne by the assistance of the Protestants of Suffolk and what recompence she gave them for it And whereas no fewer then eight rebellions did rise in Henry the VIII his dayes I find not that the Protestants had a hand in any of them All were raised by Papists and upon the score of Popery The principal colour of our Adversaries malice is his detestation of the late rebellion of England and the execrable Murther committed in the sacred Person of our gracious Sovereigne Upon this he makes several Panegyricks which are very ill sorted with his Apology for Mariana and justifying of the Iesuites doctrine Especially seeing that those actions were copied out upon their principles Felicia tempora quae te Moribus admorunt Belike the curious pens of the wise States-men and learned Scholars of England had need to be supplied by the boyish theames of a petty Novice of Doway to learn the duty of Subjects and to abhorre the guiltinesse of rebellion The venome that lieth under that oratory of invectives is that all the mischief is imputed to the Protestants of Integrity a term which he useth like a stirrup-leather longer or shorter according to his occasions yet alwayes treacherously to cast the faults of some particular person or some heretical Sect upon the generality of the Protestants But let him know that the King the Church and the State are Protestants of Integrity and that the parricides and troublers of our Israel will never give him thanks for calling them Protestants Also that we acknowledge them not for such unlesse it be upon a new score because they protest against the Kings power and the duty of their obedience When Jesuits or their Scholars as this Gentleman is charge our Fanaticks with High Treason they do but act that which they had prepared to do if the Powder-Plot had taken For they had a Declaration ready to indite the Protestants of that Treason For these men would story the just clamor against them for their doctrine of rebellion and parricide by laying the same charge with loud words upon others We have great reason to call upon the Justice of God and Men to condemne the unsincerity of this clamour With what face or conscience can the Jesuits passe a hard Sentence upon the late Rebels and King-killers seeing that these furious Zealots have neither taught nor done any thing in that horrible defection but what they had learned of the Jesuits For what do they blame them for Is it for teaching that the Sovereigne Power lieth in the Commons and that they may alter the Government of a State Did they not learn Bellarm. de Laicis lib. 3. cap. 6. Potestas immediate est tanquam in subjecto in tota multitudine si causa legitima adsit potest multitudo mutare regnum in Aristocratiam aut Democratiam è contrarie that of Bellarmine The Power saith he is in the whole multitude as in its subject and if there be a lawful cause for it the multitude may alter the Royal State into an Aristocracy or Democracy and so on the contrary Is it for saying that the people makes the King and may unmake him and retains still the habit of power Did they not learn of the same Bellarmine that In the Kingdomes of Bellarm. de Concil lib. 2. cap. 19. In regnis hominum potestas Regis est à populo quia populus facit Regem Ibid. cap. 19. sect ad alteram In Rebusp temporalibus si Rex degeneret in tyrannum licet caput sit Regni tamen à populo potest
III. Hic statim ubi Pontificatum iniit Cleri Romani consensu Leonem tertium Imperatorem Constantinopolitanum Imperio simul communione Fidelium privat quod sanctas Imagines è sacris aedibus abrasisset Degree by the consent of the Roman Clergie deprived Leo the III. Emperour of Constantinople both of his Empire and of the Communion of the faithful because he had swept away the holy Images out of the Churches Observe that Platina that writ about the year 1472. at Rome speaks according to the great interest of that time and place which was That an Emperour excommunicated was ipso facto deprived of his Empire Whereas the Popes that lived 700 years before either had not that ambition or wanted the courage to depose Emperours But the Popes that reigned two or three hundred yeers ago made that power of deposing Princes as ancient as they could by their Historians The same must be said of the pretended deposition of Chilperick King of France by Pope Zachary the next Successor of Gregory the III. Cardinal Perron sets forth that example to fright Kings in his Oration before the three States of France and saith that the Pope absolved the people of France from their Allegiance to that King for which he alledgeth the testimony of two new Authors Paulus Aemilius and Du Tillet But Ado Bishop of Vienna in his Chronicle saith That the French by the counsel of Embassadors and of Pope Zachary established Pepin their King And Trithemius in his Abridgement of Annals speaks thus Chilperick King of the French is put out from the Kingdome as incapable to reigne by the common consent of the great persons of the Kingdome Pope Zachary giving them counsel But although the Champions of the Court of Rome ascribe to these ancient Popes that power which they never exercised or pretended to That assertion of theirs is very favourable to my purpose which is to shew that the Roman Court is and delights to be the Troubler of Christendome by that usurpation of deposing Kings and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance For the more they strive for it and labour to root it in Antiquity the more they shew the stirring of Rebellions to be essential and original unto their wicked Throne After Zachary followed Stephen the II. who set on Pepin to expel the Exarchs out of Italy and obtained Platina of him the Exarchat for himself though belonging to the Emperour of Constantinople his true Sovereigne So there was both Rebellion and Robbery in that proceeding Wherein he followed the steps of Gregory the II. who thirty yeers before had robbed the Emperour his Master of the City of Rome and the Roman Dutchy Yet in these Dominions the Emperours of the West which then begun again kept the Imperial power a Platina in vita Eugenii II. Lotharius in Italiam veniens Magistratum delegit qui populo Romano jus diceret Platina affirmeth That when Lothary came into Italy he chose Magistrates to judge the people of Rome For in the partage between the sons of Lewis the Meek Italy and Rome fell to the share of Lothary the eldest But above all the testimony of Sigonius is express who speaking of the posture of Italy in the yeer 973. saith That the Pope kept Rome Ravenna and the Sigonius de Regno Italiae lib. 7. ann 973. Pontifex Romam Ravennam ditiones reliquas tenebat authoritate magis quam imperio quod Civitates Pontificem ut Reip. Principem Regem vero ut summum Dominum intuerentur atque ei tributa obsequiaque praeberent rest of his Territories rather by Authority then Soveraignty because the Cities look'd upon the Pope as a Prince of the Common-wealth but upon the King as their Soveraigne Lord and to him they payd Tribute and yeelded Obedience It appeareth by the Histories of Volaterranus Blondus and Sabellicus that it is but about two hundred yeers since the Pope is absolute Master in Rome And for the Spiritual It was about the year 800. power Sigonius affirmeth That Pope Hadrian the I. yeilded to the Emperour Charlemagne the power of ordering the Church and electing the Pope which was so approved by Pope Leo the VIII eightscore yeers after that a Sigonius de reg Ital. ad an 963. Non sine causa Adrianum I. Carolo magno tribuisse ut Ecclesiam ordinaret Pontificem eligeret Platina in Paschalis I. Paschalis nulla interposita Imperatoris authoritate Pontiséx creatur Hanc ob rem ubi Pontificatum iniit statim Legatos ad Ludovicum misit qui ejus rei culpam omnem in Clerum populum rejicerent quod ab his vi coactus esset pontisicium munus obire Accepta hac satisfactione Ludovicus respondit populo Clero majorum instituta pacta servanda esse caverent ne dein ceps Majestatem lae derent he said that it was not without cause that Hadrian the first had done so Yet Pope Paschalis the I. got into the Roman See without the Emperours Authority and consent as his Predecessor Stephen the IV. had done before him and then sent to Lewis the Meek to purge himself and cast the fault upon the importunity of the Clergie and the people The Emperour accepted the excuse but said withal That the Clergie and the people should no more offend the Emperours Majesty in that sort Let it be then remembred that the Popes power is an usurpation first upon the Emperours of the East and since upon those of the West that it be not found strange that his power having begun by Rebellion and Usurpation is maintained in the following ages by answerable means and liveth by the same elements of which it was composed This also will give an evidence to the judicious Reader of the true cause why the Popes had such a long and pertinacious quarrel with the Emperours and thundred continually upon them with Excommunications created to them enemies and tore the Empire with Factions even that they might strip the Emperour of all his right in Italy make themselves independent both for the Spiritual and the Temporal and raise their greatnesse upon the fall of the Empire So the many examples which I shall bring of excommunicating and deposing of Emperours and absolving their subjects from their Allegiance shall lay a double guilt of rebellion upon the Popes both as commanding rebellion abroad and practising rebellion at home against their lawful Sovereigns The first Pope that offered to excommunicate the King of France was Gregory the IV. who joyned with Sigebert An. 832. the Sonnes of Lewis the meek who had conspired against their Father But the French Bishops threatned to excommunicate him so he desisted The first Pope that attempted to draw his spiritual Sword against the Emperour was that honest man Gregory Anno circiter 1080. the VII called before Hildebrand who excommunicated the Emperour Henry the IV but deposed him before The Empire he translated to Rudolph Platina
For which Joseph Stevan ‖ Ioseph Stevan Epist ad Gregor XIII de osculo pedum Papae Iure meritoque in Religionis Ecclesiae infensissimum hostem Fredericum Barbarossam non ut in salem insatuatum quem jubet Christus pedibus proterere sed potius ut horrendam belluam calcibus insultavit who writ at Rome to Gregory the XIII of kissing the Popes feet checks Duarenus saying that Pope Alexander the III. trod the Emperour Frederick under foot not onely as salt which hath lost its savour but as an horrible wild beast And Otho Frisingensis both relates it and commends it * Otho Frising lib. 5. cap. 14. Quod sactum summis liberum est sacerdotibus cum Principum tyrannidem aut violatam fidem aut Ecclesiae imminutam dignitatem vident and saith That the Popes have the power to do so much when they see the tyranny of Princes or that faith is violated or the dignity of the Church imbezelled So though the History were not as it is most undoubtedly true the approving and exalting of the fact in the Court of Rome makes that Court as guilty as if it had been done But it was done and as bad was done by other Popes Pope Celestin the III. gave Constantia a Nunne in marriage to the Emperour Henry the VI. and gave him for her dowry the Kingdome of both the Sicilies upon Platina Uspergensis condition he should expell Tancred who was possess'd of the Kingdome Hence a bloody War between Henry the VI. and Tancred It is ordinary to the Pope to give that which is none of his When the Pope giveth a Kingdome from a Prince that enjoyeth it he commands together the people to resist him making a sport to spill their blood and damn their souls Baronius commends very much that Popes behaviour Annal. Roger. an 1191. Sedebat Dominus Papa in Cathedra Pontificali tenens coronam auream inter pedes suos Imperator inclinato capite recepit coronam imperator similiter de pedibus Domini Papae Dominus autem Papa statim percussit cum pede suo coronam Imperatoris dejecit eam in terram significans quod ipse potestatem ejiciendi eum ab Imperio habet si ille demeruerit in the Crowning of the Emperour Henry the VI. and his Wife thus related in the Annalls of Rogerius The Pope was sitting in his pontifical chair holding an Imperial golden Crown between his feet and the Emperour bowing his head received the Crown and the Empress likewise by the feet of the Pope And the Pope presently hit the Emperours Crown and kick'd it down to the ground thereby signifying that he had power to cast him down from the Empire if he deserved it Baronius having related this amplifieth it with this morality ‖ Baron Tom. 12. Anno 1191. sect 10. Ut fixum menti Caesaris haereret nempe dare custodire conservare auserre si causa exigeret imperium esse in voluntate Romani Pontificis ejusmodi voluit commenere eum exemplo That it might remain fixed in the Emperours mind that it lieth in the Popes pleasure to give keep preserve and take away the Empire if there be cause for it he would admonish him with such an example Could the Devil have set up pride to a higher pin to put the Emperours Crown at his feet as a foot-stool for him to tread upon put the Crown on the Emperours head with his feet as an office too low for his hands and then with his foot kick'd it down as having a quarrell against the Imperiall Crown and together a contempt for it This and the treading upon the Emperours neck were significant ceremonies with a witness And what more effectual course could have been taken to raise rebellion in all the States of Christendome then thus to blast the respect of Majesty For thereby all Nations were taught that their Princes were not Sovereigns but the Popes Vassalls and Liegemen That themselves were not their Kings Subjects but the Popes who could kick down their Crowns when he listed and that when that supreme Head shall command it the Feet that is the inferiour Members of the State must make Foot-balls of the Crowns of Emperours and Kings After Celestin the III. came Innocent the III. as proud but more active then he England hath reason to remember this Pope For he excommunicated King John deposed him absolved his Subjects from their allegiance to him and cast an Interdict upon England which lasted six years All which time no Divine Service was said in the Kingdome but in some priviledged places no Sacrament was administred and no corps buried in Consecrated Ground The Kingdome of England he gave to Philip August of France if he could take it and that by a formal order thus related by Matthew Paris The Pope by the counsell Matth. Paris in vita Reg. Johan Papa ex consilio Cardinalium Episcoporum aliorum vivorum prudentium sententialiter definivit ut Rex a solio deponeretur Ad hujus quoque sententiae executionem scripsit Dominus Papa potentissimo Regi Francorum Philippo quatenus in remissionem peccatorum suorum hunc laborem assumeret of the Cardinalls Bishops and other prudent men gave a definitive sentence that the King should be put down from his Throne For the execution of that Sentence the Pope writ to the most potent King of the French Philip that for the remission of his sins he should take that labour upon him A new way for that King to get the remission of his sins to invade his neighbours estate As in the age of our Fathers Pope Sixtus the V. gave nine years of true indulgence to all the French that would bear Arms against their King Henry the III. Thus the remission of sins purchased by the blood of the Son of God and presented by his Gospell to all that repent and believe is by the Pope given as a reward of Invasion and Rebellion Matthew Paris writes that The Pope having gotten the Kingdome of England to himself to his thinking sent to Philip August to enjoyn him to be reconciled with King John else he would put France to Interdict Philip answered that he feared not his sentence and that it belonged not to the Church of Rome to pronounce a sentence against the King of France It is a long and a sad story how King John was persecuted by Pope Innocent the III. his Barons made to rise against him his Neighbours to fall upon him his Clergy to revile him and his people to despise him till that unlucky King was brought to such an extremity that to buy his peace he gave his Kingdome to the Pope and yet could not get his peace that way The Gold which he laid at the Legats feet in sign of subjection the Legat trod under his feet in scorn yet took it in his hand after so great was his clemency What a cruel tyranny did the
to Rome where he was so ill beloved that no body stirred to rescue him With this adversity his proud heart was broken and he died five and thirty dayes after Benedict the XI who was elected in his place absolved Philip presently And his Successor Clement the V. to that Absolution added a complemental Bull in which Philip is exalted as a pious and religious Prince As it may be seen Extravagante Meruit and well deserving of the Church as it may be seen Extravagante Meruit For the Popes easily pardon the sins of those whom they fear Truly that vertuous King hath left a fair lesson to posterity by what wayes the favour of that Holy See ought to be purchased and preserved And since Lewis the XIV now reigning is taking the like course with the Pope he is like to be in time the favourite of his Holinesse and to obtain from him another Bull meruit declaring how well that eldest Son of the Church hath deserved from the Church his Mother Pope Iohn XXIII angry that Ludovicus Bavarus had taken upon him the administration of the Empire before Platina Hieronymus Marius he got his leave refused to crown him though many times desired by him The Emperour did nothing the lesse continue his power and imperial care both in Germany and Italy and going to Rome the Pope then sitting at Avignon was crowned by the joynt consent of Clergy Nobles and People Upon which he was excommunicated and deprived of the Empire as far as words could do it by this Pope And the same Sentence was confirmed against the Emperour by the Successor of Iohn Benedict the XII Clement the VI. who came next after was more inclement then his predecessors in persecuting Ludovicus Bavarus For he excommunicated all the Bishops that Nauclerus adhered to him and set Bulls at the doors of all the Churches to raise rebellion against him And when the Emperour would submit to him and sue for peace he required such conditions of him as neither he nor the Princes of the Empire would or could yield unto as that he should depose himself put all his Estate and his own Sons in the Popes power and promise to undertake no more any thing without the Popes leave These conditions being rejected by the Emperour Clement charged the Electors to elect another Which when the Archbishop of Ments refused to do representing the Emperours innocency he deprived him of his Archbishoprick and of his Electoral dignity The other Electors corrupted with money by John King of Bohemia elected his Son Charles King of the Romans whom Clement approved whence great and bloody Warres followed and the Emperour Ludovicus Bavarus was taken away by poyson by Clements means as some Authors write That Election of Charles the IV. was the breaking Fasciculus temp Volatterran of the back of the Empire which the Popes had been long labouring for For this Charles that he might be elected Emperour pawned the tributes of the Empire to the Electors And the Electors made him swear that he would never disengage that pawne Then they made him make that authentical Capitulation which I have produced in my first Chapter The Empire being thus weakned and losing the Tributes which are the sinewes of Warre was disabled from resisting the Turk who hath since wasted the Christian Provinces with little opposition and hath destroyed so many Churches or turned them into Moskites For all these distractions the Church and the Empire may thank the See of Rome which had a hand in all the Negotiations of the Princes of Germany and Italy and whose Authority acted alwayes for the depression of the Emperour Neither could all these conditions so hurtful to the Imperial Dignity and the publick subsistence have past into standing laws if the Pope had not promoted them or if he would have shewed himself against them Since this Pope Clement the VI. for about fifty or threescore years I find not that the Popes had many irons in the fire out of the limits of Italy the Papal power being much broken with Schismes So that the Popes instead of fulminating Bulls against Emperours and Kings courted its several Monarchs of Christendome to take their party against their Anti-popes Benedict the XIII in the year 1408. being incensed Theodoricus à Niem in nemore unionis against Charles the VI. of France for inhibiting the exactions of the Papal Court sent a Bull of Excommunication against the King and his Princes The University Somnium Viridarii of Paris required that the Bull should be torne and that Pope Benedict whom they called Peter de Luna should be declared Heretick Schismatick and disturber of peace Which was done The Bull was torne by Sentence of the Court. And two Bullists bearers Carolus Molinaeus contra parvas datas relates that Sentence of the Court. of that Bull made that which they call Honourable amends upon the Pallace stairs then were carried in two dung carts arrayed in Jerkins of course linnen cloth painted with paper Miters on their head the trumpets sounding before them and the common people howting upon them and abusing them So little account did they make of the roaring of the Popes Bulls For a hundred years after Benedict the XIII I find not that the Popes made use of their spiritual Sword against any Prince out of Italy and Sicily partly by reason of Schismes when that Roman Beast had many heads partly by reason of the Councils occasioned by these Schismes For they had three Councils in lesse than forty years at Constance at Basil and at Florence and the first and second of them took upon them to depose Popes and gave credit to that dangerous opinion so odious to the Court of Rome that the Council is above the Pope This kept the Popes for a time in some order and respect to the Princes of Christendome but for some wrangling about pragmatick sanctions which grew not so high as to Warre or Excommunication But in recompence Julius the II. raised warres and tumults as much as would serve for a hundred years He drew both his Swords against several Princes and States of Christendome especially against that excellent King Lewis the XII of France For having drawn him into Italy for his ends he makes a League Oâ—â—phrius Paul â—â—â—â—us to drive him out excommunicates him and puts his Kingdome to Interdict Excommunicates the Venetians giveth their dominions to any that will take them Driveth the Bentivogli out of Bononia exposeth their houses to pillage Excommunicates the Duke of Ferrara and invades his Countrey by Armes goes to Warre in person Makes the English the Spaniards and the Switzers to fall upon the French takes many Imperial Cities Excommunicates the King of Navarre and giveth his Kingdome to the King of Arragon who upon that invades and takes it And this is all the title that the Spaniard hath to Navarre which he keepeth to this day So much blood was
III. and absolved his subjects from all Allegiance to him in consequence of that Bull many of the French rebelled against their King and he wasslain upon that account by a Dominican Friar Which when this Pope heard he commended the action highly in a full Consistory at Rome and forbad that any funeral rites should be celebrated for him Which funeral rites usually celebrated at Rome for departed Princes consisting most in prayer for their souls it appeareth that his Holinesse was not contented that he had slain that King by his Bull but would also damne his soul Gregory the XIV excommunicated by his Bulls Henry the IV. of France forbidding all Peers Nobles Cities and Commons to yield him obedience and declaring him incapable of the Crown as an Heretick and relapse But that Bull was by the Court of Parliament then sitting at Tours condemned to be torn and burnt by the Hang-man Clement the VIII did the same over again and excommunicated Henry The Bull was condemned as the other to be burnt by the hand of the Hang-man But the effect of these Bulls appeared by the attempts against the Kings life which soon after followed first by a woman next by Peter Barriere and again by John Chastel all denying him to be King because he was not absolved by the Pope Neither did the effects of these Bulls cease after that the King was absolved by his Holinesse For by them the King got his death Ravilliac who killed him could alledge them when he was examined and say that the King was an Heretick in his heart and deserved to be slain as an enemy of the Church Paul the V. was as turbulent as his predecessors as he shewed it in his insolent and impertinent quarrel with the Venetians because they had stopt by Edict the giving of Lands to the Church whereby the State lost many tributes and services He threatned them of Excommunication if they did not recal that Law And upon their maintaining of it he excommunicated them and put their State in Interdict But it took no effect for none of their Clergy would or durst obey it the Jesuites onely excepted who therefore were expelled out of their dominions They condemned the Popes Bull by Edict and forbad the bringing of it into their Territory upon pain of hanging Neither did they give any satisfaction to the Pope when the businesse came to an Arbitrement but forced him to make amends to himself and to come to their terms In the beginning of this Popes reigne was detected that Treason not to be matcht in any age for cruelty and depth of villany the Gunpowder-plot to have destroyed in one blow the King the Parliament the Judges of the Land and all the flowre and strength of the Kingdome of England This horrid Treason was the effect of the several Bulls of the Pope before the Reigne of our gracious King James of glorious memory who coming into his Kingdome of England found it lying under a Papal Interdict and himself excluded from the Crown by a Bull sent into England a little before the death of Queen Elizabeth whereby all that are not Roman Catholicks are declared incapable of and excluded from the Succession of which his Majesty complains in his Apology And that Bull was produced in the Indictment of the Jesuite Garnet as the principal motive of the Gunpowder Treason This gave occasion to the Oath of Supremacy set forth by the King and his Parliament then sitting for the security of his Majesties Life and Dignity wherein it is required of all to whom it is administred to acknowledge his Majesty to be the lawful King of the Realmes of England Scotland and Ireland and that the Pope hath no right to depose him of his Kingdoms or dispense his Subjects from their obedience to him Also that they abhorre as impious and heretical this doctrine That Princes excommunicated by the Pope may justly be deposed or slain by their owne Subjects This Oath being presented to the Roman Catholicks some of them made no difficulty to take it among others Blackwell the Arch-priest Whereupon the Pope sent Apostolical Letters into England declaring that Dated Sept. 22. 1606. this Oath could not be taken with a safe conscience and exhorting the English to suffer all kinds of torments and death it self rather then to offend Gods Majesty by such an Oath To imitate the constancy of other English Martyrs To have their loins girt about with vertue to put on the Brest-plate of righteousnesse and take the Buckler of Faith He tells them that God who hath begun in them that good work will perfect it and will not suffer them to be Orphans c. And he injoyneth them to observe diligently the precepts contained in the Letters which Clement the VIII his predecessor had written a little before to Mr. George Arch-priest of England By which Letters all Princes of a Religion contrary to the Roman are excluded from the Crown of England These Letters whereby the English were exhorted to be Martyrs of the Popes Sovereignty in England and to make it an Article of their faith which they must signe with their blood that the Pope hath power to depose Princes and expose them to be expelled and slain by their own subjects did not receive that entertainment which he expected among the English of his Religion For some rejected them as supposititious forged by the Hereticks to draw persecution upon them and kindle their Kings wrath against them he being already justly provoked to revenge by the late conspiracy The Pope hearing of this sends other and more express letters Dated Aug. 23. 1607. into England to expostulate with the Roman Catholicks saying That he wondred at their doubting of the truth of the Apostolick letters to dispense themselves upon that pretence from obeying his commandments And therefore he declareth That those Letters were written by himself not only motu proprio ex certa scientia by his own motion and certain knowledge but also after a long and grave deliberation enjoyning them again to obey those Letters because such is his pleasure To these letters which set up rebellion with a high hand as an Article of the Roman Faith were joyned letters of Cardinal Bellarmine to Blackwell the Archpriest wherein he chides him bitterly for taking the Oath which under colour of modifications had no other end but to transport the Popes authority to a Successor of Henry the VIII And by the examples of his Predecessors he exhorteth him to defend the Popes primacy whom he calleth The Head of the Faith Of this Oath thus prohibited by the Pope and cryed down by Bellarmine the Jesuite Becanus saith That both of them the Pope and Bellarmine Beean de dissidio Anglic. Vterque negat salva conscientia praestari posse hoc juramentum quia abnegarent fi-Catholicam deny that it may be taken with a safe Conscience because by taking it the Catholick Faith is denyed Is it then an
Article of the Catholick Roman faith that Princes excommunicated by the Pope are ipso facto deposed and their subjects absolved from all obedience and fidelity to them It is directly though not believed but by few You have that fundamental Law authentically pronounced by Gregory the VII and it is made a Canon of the Roman Church By Apostolical Causa 15. Qu. 5. cap. Nos Sanctorum Eos qui excommunicatis fidelitate aut Sacramento constricti sunt Apostolica authoritate a juramento absolvivimus ne sibi fidem observent omnibus modis prohibemus authority we absolve from their oath all them that are bound by fidelity or oath to excommunicate persons and by means we forbid them to keep faith unto such persons I would ask the Roman Catholicks Seriously do you believe this And are you ready to seal that faith with your obedience or sufferings upon occasions If you believe and will maintain it you are not good subjects but dangerous persons in the State If you deny faith and obedience to that Papal Decree you are not good Roman Catholicks for if you were you would acknowledge the Pope the Head of the Faith with Bellarmine and that the Pope cannot erre in his Canons and that it is in the Popes power to make Articles of faith according to the determination of the Council of Trent Now the Pope hath made this an Article of your faith the denying of it an heresie and the resisting of it a crime punish'd in the persons of Kings by the deprivation of Kingdom and life Open your eyes Christian souls that are so much blinded as to pin your faith upon the Popes Decrees And reading in your own Authors the histories of the Popes behaviour which I have here represented acknowledg that those Decrees for many hundred years have been the powerful stirrers of rebellion in Christendome and the ambition of Popes the first Intelligence that sets the great Orb of sedition on going After that the Popes have thus commanded and wrought rebellion by express Decrees and filled the Christian world with fire and blood these five or six hundred years have the Jesuites the face when we object this against the Head of their Faith to object unto us in exchange some passages out of books either false or disowned by us if true And the defensive Arms of a few persons living under the Cross and driven by themselves upon the brink of despair The evil which men of our Religion have said or done we condemn freely and openly Let the Romanists condemn also so many Decrees of the Popes which have been the Incentives of war and brands of rebellion But that they cannot as long as they remain Papists sworn to approve all that the Pope saith or doth The difference between the faults of the Pope and those of Protestants about the point of obedience is this That disobedience with us is a crime but with him it is a Law We punish rebels but the Pope rewards them We say to rebels after St Paul That they that So did Sixtus the V. of which before resist the higher powers shall receive to themselves damnation But the Pope promiseth eternal life to make subjects rebel against their King We abhor the murtherers of Kings but the Pope sets them on by his excommunications and after the murther committed makes panegyricks on their praise Can the Romanists produce among us a Priest that hath made himself a Temporal Prince by robbing his Master of his land who hath kickt down the Emperors crown trodden upon his neck with his foot deposed him from his Kingdom made his son rise in Arms against him absolved his subjects from their obedience and given his Dominions to another One that makes himself the absolute disposer of Kingdoms and Master of the Universe Such a Priest is no where to be found but at Rome After this true account of so many Emperours and Kings deposed and killed and so much rebellion slaughter and desolation wrought in Christendom by the Papal excommunications and factions let the conscionable Reader who is not altogether ignorant in modern History judge what truth there is in our Adversaries assertion That in this last Century of years there have been pag. 93. more Princes deposed and murthered for their Religion by those Protestants of Integrity then have been in all the others since Christ's time by the Popes excommunications or the attempts and means of Roman Catholicks He should have set down a list of those Princes deposed and murthered by Protestants and for their Religion For my part I have heard of none Indeed Charles the I. our holy King and Martyr suffered for his Religion and the Adversary may take that one for many because he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worth alone many Princes But they that murthered him were not Protestants they disavow that name And it was for the Protestant Religion that he suffered But since he speaks of the means and attempts made by Roman Catholicks against Princes he shall hear a little more of them CHAP. V. The Adversaries Defence of the Jesuites examined Their Doctrine and Attempts against the Crown and life of Kings THe Adversary who is commended in the Epistle to the Reader as a most observant Son of the Church of England takes upon him the defence of the Jesuite Mariana so infamous for his doctrine of killing of Kings and saith three things about that The one is That he handleth that matter only problematically page 94. But the Court of Parliament of Paris composed of grave heads did not understand it so when they condemned his book to the fire Neither doth he speak of the murther of Henry the III. of France problematically when he exalteth the murtherer in these words Making a shew of delivering Mariana lib. 1. de Rege Regis Iustitutione cap. 6. Specie litteras in manus tradendi cultro quem herbis noxiis medicatum manu tegebat supra vesicam altum vulnus inflixit Insignem animi confidentiam Facinus memorabile Caeso Rege ingens sibi nomen fecit letters to the King he gave him a deep wound above the bladder with a poysoned knife which he hid in his hand O admirable confidence of minde O memorable action by killing the King he got to himself a great name And in the same place he taxeth the Kings servants who presently killed that murtherer of cruelty and barbarousness The second answer for Mariana is That the question was not for killing of Kings but for killing of Tyrants page 94. This man shews himself a right scholar of the Jesuites for this is their distinction But if a King deposed by the Pope keeps his Kingdome in spight of him they account him no more a King but a Tyrant And whereas there are two sorts of Tyrants some by usurpation which they call Tyrannos in Titulo Tyrants in the Title some Tyrants by administration the Jesuites hold That a lawful King
when he is once deposed by Suarez desens lib. 6. cap. 5. Incipit esse Tyrannus in Titulo quia non est legitimus Rex the Pope begins to be a Tyrant in his Title because he is no more a lawful King And being thus become a Tyrant it is by their doctrine lawful to kill him Therefore Henry the IV. of France whom no body durst have called King at Rome before his absolution was so often assaulted by murtherers at that time because he was accounted a Tyrant as long as he reigned without the Popes approbation Upon that account Bellarmine saith That the Bellarm. in Barklaium cap. 3. Non permitto tibi inquit Papa ut regi non pareas quod esset contra jus divinum sed sacio ut ille qui tibi Rex erat non sit sibi deinceps Rex Pope deposing a King doth not permit the people to disobey their King but he makes him that was their King to be their King no more The third answer is that the whole order of Jesuites disavowes Marian's position and have categorically determined the contrary But why then did the same General of the Jesuites who disavowed it when destruction was hanging over the head of his Order approve and licence it before For the Book was approved by Aqua viva General of the Jesuites and Stephanus Hoyeda Visitor of their Society in the Province of Toledo And theapprobation mentioneth that Quippe approbatus prius à viris doctis gravibus ex eodem ordine other Jesuites had approved it before The Adversary brings some allegations out of Books of Jesuites that disown that position that it is lawful to attempt against the life of a Prince The Jesuite Eudemono-Johannes had made those allegations ready for him He makes Tolet say in his Summary lib. 5. cap. 6. that it is not lawful to attempt against the life of a Prince though he never so much abuse his Power and that is flat heresie to maintain the contrary But these are Tolets words in the alledged Tolet Sum. lib. 5. cap. 6. Tyrannum administratione qui quidem habet verum titulum sed tyrannicé tractat subditos non licet absque publicae authoritate occidere place That It is not lawful to kill with out publick authority a Tyrant by admistration who hath indeed a just Title but useth his Subjects tyrannycally Now what publick authority doth he mean but that of the Pope And that is meant also by Suarez Defens ful lib. 6. cap. 4. Dicimus Principem propter tyrannicum regimen vel propter quaecunque crimina non posse ab aliquo privata authoritate occidi Suarez who saith That a Prince may not be killed by any out of private authority for his Tyrannical Government or for any crime whatsoever He will have a publick authority for it which is that of the Popes For both Bellarmine and Becan maintain Bellarm lib. 5. de Romano Pontif cap. 8. Becan lib. de controversia Anglicana Jojada Pontifex prius privavit Athaliam regno deinde vita Et paulo post Quicquid potestatis jurisdictionis permissum fuit Pontifici in Veteri Testamento hoc etiam in Novo promissum est illi that the Pope hath the same right over Kings as Jehojada had over Athalia Now Jehojada the high Priest saith he first deprived Athalia of her Kingdome and next of her life And a little after All the power and jurisdiction that was granted to the high Priest in the Old Testament is promised to him also in the New This is then that authority without which they will not have a King kill'd and by which he may be kill'd even the Popes authority Our Jesuite alledgeth Salmeron expounding the 13. Chapter to the Romans Where saith he he referreth the act of Ehud against King Eglon to Gods express commandment That 's granted But hear him further It is not lawfull for a private Salmeron in Rom. 13. Disp 5. Non licet privato propriá authoritate Tyrannum interficere maxime si in pacificá possessione sit armatus satellitio regnet person to kill a Tyrant by his own authority especially if he be in quiet possession and reign armed with Guards about him All the security which he giveth to Kings whom the Pope will call them Tyrants is that no man by his private authority can kill him but by the publick authority which is that of the Pope any man may And he giveth a good warning to such Kings to keep a strong guard about their persons without which a Jesuite will soon find it lawful to kill them Gregorius de Valentia alledged by the Adveasary Greg. de Valent. part 2. q. 64. saith indeed It is no way permitted for a man to attempt upon the life of his Prince albeit he abuse his authority But he addeth If it be not done by publick judgement Now that publick judgement is either that of the State or of the Pope or of the General of the Jesuites But let us hear the same Gregory speak more home Temporal domination and superiority over Greg. de Valen. Tom. 3. disputationum in Thomamdis 1. q. 12. pan 2 Dominatio temporalis superioritas in subditos per sententiam Papae potest omnino adimi haereticis Ratio est quia si possunt privari vitá multo magis omnibus bonis per consequens omni superioritate in alios Subjects may by the Popes sentence be taken away from Hereticks The reason is that if they can be deprived of life much more of all goods and by consequence of all superiority over others taking it for granted and presupposed that Kings may be deprived of life by the Popes Authority Bellarmin alledged by the Adversary may have declared his opiniòn as the other Jesuites that a King must not be deposed and slain by private authority then it may be done by publick authority And we have shewed before that Bellarmin alloweth the same authority to the Pope over Kings as Jehoiada had over Athalia whom he deposedand killed but he speaks more plainly when * Bellarm. sub nomine Matth. Torti pag. 84. 85. Edit Colon. Ultus est Deus Christum suum dum per alium sacratum virum alioqui militiae imperitum inermem regem eundem non manifesto divinae providentiae miraculo interfecit he commends the murther committed by a Monk against the person of Henry the III. of France and calls the Murtherer Sacratum Virum a sacred person It seems then he had forgotten himself Idem contra Barckl cap. 7. Non pertinet ad Monachos aut alios Ecclesiasticos viros caedes facere multo minus per insidias Reges occidére Neque summi Pontisices consueverunt ista ratione Reges coercere Mos est primum paterne corrigere deinde per censuram Ecclesiasticam sacramentorum communione privare Denique subditos eorum à juramento fidelitatis absolvere eosque
dignitate atque authoritate regia privare Executio ad alios pertinet when he would not have Ecclesiastical men to kill Kings with their own hands but to stand to the method that the Pope observeth Which is first to admonish Kings fatherly Then deprive them of the Communion of the Sacraments by Ecclesiastical censures Finally to absolve their subjects from the Oath of their Allegiance and if needs be deprive them of the Royal Authority The execution belongeth to others The Adversary also alledgeth Lessius in his book de Scientia Jure he meaneth de Justitia It seemeth the man had heard of the book but never seen it But for that mistake his quotation is right a Lessius de Iustitia Iure lib. 2. cap. 9. dubio 4. Talis non potest à privatis interimi quandiu manet Princeps c. In that place speaking of such a King as is not a tyrant by usurpation but by administration he saith Such a Prince cannot be slain by private persons as long as he remains a Prince Which is altogether against the security of Kings lives For the Popes Decrees and the writings of the Jesuites having so many times determined that a Prince deposed by the Pope is no more a Prince but a private person this goodly Aphorisme of Lessius exposeth the lives of all Kings deposed or excommunicated to the attempts of all private men b Idem Ibid. dubio 11. Princeps non potest à subdito interfici nisi forte ob necessariam vitae suae desensionem He alloweth also a subject to kill his Prince in the defence of his own life contrary to the Evangelical precept of not resisting the higher Dub. 12. Si tantum excrescat tyrannis ut non videatur amplius tolerabilis nec ullum aliud remedium supersit primum à Rep. vel comitiis regni vel alio habente authoritatem esse deponendum hostem declarandum ut in ipsius personam liceat quicquam attentare Tunc enim desinit esse Princeps powers And that you may know him to be like his confreres in treasonable doctrine He concludes that question thus If the tyranny groweth to that point that it seem not to be tolerated any more and that there be no remedy He must first be deposed by the Common-wealth or the States of the Kingdome or by another that hath authority and declared an enemy that it may be lawful to attempt any thing against his person What is that other person that hath authority over King Commonwealth and States It must be one that belongs not to the State else he should be a subject and could not pretend to that authority of deposing the King and exposing his life to all attempts And what other person pretends to that authority but the Pope He alledgeth also Azorius in his Moral Institution but doth not quote any place This is his doctrine All that were bound to an heretick in any Azorius hist Moral part 1. lib. 8 cap. 13. Eos omnes qui erant haeretico aliqua ratione obstrict jusjurandi seu fidelitatis seu alterius pactionis liberari Absolutos se noverint à debito fidelitatis Domini totius obsequii quicunque lapsis manifesto in haeresin aliquo pacto quacunque firmitate tenebantur astricti manner whether with oath or fidelity or any other paction Let them know that they are absolved from all debt of fidelity or obedience c. The Pope may take away or give a King for just causes and then the people may obey the Pope as their superiour who hath sovereigne power both upon the King and Kingdome If Idem Ibid. part 2. lib. 11. cap. 5. A Romano Pontifice Rex au fertur vel datur justis de causis tunc populus tanquam superiori Romano Pontifici parere debet Habet in Regem regnum summam potestatem he hath sovereigne power over them he hath power of life and death And whereas this Gentleman alledgeth Gretzer as one that confuteth all Mariana's grounds I find that he defends them all in that very place which he quoteth We are not such dastards saith Gretzer-Vespertilio Haereticopoliticus pag. 159. Tam timidi trepidi non sumus ut asserere palam vereamur Romanum Pontificem posse si necessitas exigat subditos Catholicos solvere juramento fidelitatis si Princeps tyrannice illos tractet he as to fear openly to affirme that the Pope of Rome may if necessity so require free his Catholick subjects from their oath of fidelity if their Sovereigne handle them tyrannically Yea he takes openly Mariana's cause saying pag. 160. that Mariana is wrongfully traduced for writing that it is lawful to kill any Prince that disobeyeth the Pope since he maintains that a lawful Prince who disobeyeth the Pope notwithstanding ought not to be made away by any private man if sentence be not pronounced against him And he that must pronounce that Sentence is the Pope He complaineth also that Mariana is unjustly accused for affirming that a tyrant ought to be poysoned seeing he Idem pag. 162. Ne tyannum quidem primi vel secundi generis etiam post judiciariam contra illum latam sententiam veneno licite tollis si Tyrannus ipsemet venenum illud sumere sibi applicare debeat maintains the contrary affirming that a tyrant cannot lawfully be made away by poyson if himself take it and apply it to himself Which cannot be avoided when his meat and drink is poysoned So in the end he agreeth with Mariana whose words I have produced in my second Chapter and is content that a tyrant be poysoned so that he takes not the poyson himself Is not that straining the gnat and swallowing the camel These holy murtherers make nothing of killing a King onely they are scrupulous about the circumstance Thus I have shewed what those Jesuites say which this Gentleman alledgeth All but Serarius and Richeome which I have not by me no more then he that quoteth them And I have made it plain that they all consent with Mariana and speak the same language But what he tells us that the opinion of Mariana was condemned by a Provincial Congregation of the Jesuites and that condemnation ratified by the General of the Jesuites Claudius Aquaviva So it was with shame enough to Aquaviva and his confreres who had approved and licenced it before But see what that condemnation comes to the Jesuites seeing their Sect made odious by the writings of Mariana Suarez Vasquez and others and more by the murthering of Kings by persons died with their principles made Ne quisquam scripto vel sermone doceat licitum esse cuicunque personae quocunque praetextu tyrannidis Reges aut Principes occidere an order among themselves whereby they forbad to write or teach that doctrine any more The words of the Ratification are those That none teach by writing or speaking that
it is lawful for any person or upon any pretence of Tyranny to kill Kings and Princes Was it not time think ye to forbid teaching so any more when they had been expelled for it out of France and made the objects of the publick execration But how grosse is their fraud in that order Do they forbid their Society to believe so By no means but to teach so Neither will they have it lawful for any person to kill Kings but to such as are commissioned for it Neither will they have the execution done upon any pretence of tyranny but onely upon the definitive Sentence of the Pope or the States And how are the lives of Kings and Princes more secure then before by their declaring that it is not lawful to kill Kings and Princes seeing that in their account they are no more Kings and Princes when they are once excommunicated and deposed by the Pope The Adversary alledgeth also the Council of Constance which condemneth the doctrine of killing tyrants as erroneous But if this Gentleman be a true Papist and hold that the Pope is Mariana lib. 2. cas 6. p. 62. Id decretum Romano Pontifici Martino V. probatum non invenio non Eugenio aut successoribus quorum consensu Conciliorum Ecclesiasticorum sanctitas stat praesertim quod non sine Ecclesiae motu tricipiti Pontificum dissidio de summo Pontificatu contendentium celebratum fuisse scimus above the Council he shall make nothing of that Councils Authority seeing that it is not liked by the Popes for we learn of Mariana that neither Martin the V. then elected nor Eugenius nor his Successors approve it and he disgraceth it as assembled in a tumultuous time when there were three Popes reigning together But the truth is That the Decree of that Councell is rather against the safety of Kings For the case propounded to the Councel by Gerson was not about the murther of Sovereigne Princes but about the killing of a great Officer of the Crown who ruleth tyrannically and exalts himself above his King for John Duke of Burgundy who had killed Lewis Duke of Orleans pretended him to have been a Tyrant in that kinde If then such Tyrants be declared inviolable persons by the Councel the Councel by its authority guards them against the attempts of loyal subjects and strengthneth them against their King Suarez goeth another way to work to elude the authority Suarez in Keg Mag. Brit. lib. 6. cap. 4. sect 20. Vbileget Rex in Concilio Constantiensi particulam illam Principis per Papam excommunicati vel deprivati aut illam per suos subditos aut alios quoscunque of that Decree saying to our Most Excellent King James That the Council of Constance forbids not the killing of a King excommunicated by the Pope for indeed that was not the case agitated in the Council And now we are upon Suarez we will set down here one of his golden sentences to this purpose If saith he under the word of Excommunication Ejusdem lib. cap. 6. sect 24. Si sub voce excommunicationis comprehendatur depositio diffidatio quae per sententiam cononicam interdum fit sic veritatem continere illam propositionem Regem excommunicatum impune deponi vel occidi quibuscunque posse you comprehend deposition and devesting a Prince of his right which somtimes is done by a canonical sentence then there is truth in that proposition that a King excommunicated may be deposed or slain by any persons whatsoever impunedly The Adversary concludeth his justification of the Jesuites by alledging the Decree of Sorbon against the doctrine of King-killing and the Arrest of the Parliament of Paris against the book of Mariana What style must be given to this mans confidence Could he presume so much upon the Readers ignorance as to bring that for the Jesuites which is most against them Who knows not that the Decree of Sorbon was directly made against the Jesuites as the assertors of the doctrine of King-killing Who knows not that the Arrest of Parliament which condemneth Mariana's book to the fire blasteth expresly the doctrine and the sect of the Jesuites If he say that he brings that to clear the Roman Religion he changeth the question for he had undertaken to defend the Jesuites And these allegations are for us who desire to shew to the world that many Professors of the Roman Religion abhor these principles overcome by the evidence of honest truth and therefore are not true Papists since their belief is not ruled by the Head of the Roman Faith in the point which most neerly concerneth his power and grandeur This Gentleman might be ashamed to alledge the Sorbon if he knoweth what Decree was made by them Apr. 4. 1626. against the book of the Jesuite Santarel and the Jesuitical doctrine of King-killing A Decree confirmed the 8. of May following by the University of Paris After these Allegations wherewith this Gentleman cuts the throat of his cause with his own sword Judge page 96. ye what reason he hath to cry up By this time I hope the tempest is pretty well laid But he must have a little more of that tempest about his ears And having so marred his own market and given me occasion to lay open the iniquity of his sect he must labour once more to satisfie divers of his good friends whom he hath found ibid. scandalized at the Fathers of the Society for protecting so villanous and treasonable a Thesis If now I bring upon the scaffold some more of their most notorious expressions and actions they may not blame me as I do them for charging the whole party with the faults of particulars For whereas this Gentleman chargeth the generality of the Protestants with the opinions of Knox and Paraeus I charge not all the Roman Catholicks with these villanous doctrines and actions but only the Court of Rome and the Jesuites These two I put together for all that the Jesuites have taught or done to promote rebellion and high Treason was undertaken to advance the Court of Rome and by a particular influence from that Court whose especial favourites and most devoted champions they are Since this Gentleman stands upon the sentence of the Court of Parliament of Paris let him hear that great man Achilles de Harlay the first President of that Venerable Court who when King Henry the IV. of France after long sollicitations of the Court of Rome was perswaded to recall the Iesuites banished before out of the Kingdome made an Oration to disswade him from it That Oration is related by Thuanus another President of that Court who was then present There that vertuous Achilles represents to the King the doctrine of the Iesuites which is That the Pope Thuanus Hist lib. 130. ad ann 1604. Iesuitae docent Pontisicem jus habere Reges extra communionem Ecclesiae ponandi excommunicatum Regem tyrannum esse subditos impune contra eum
York Squire Hesket Lopez Babington with his associates and how many more All were assisted and prompted by Jesuites as the judicial examinations will justifie And now we speak of Babington and his associates I find two brothers Bellamy's both apprehended for hiding them after they were openly proclaimed traitors in their house neer Harrowhill where they were kept ten dayes and clothed in rustical habits There they were all taken and thence carried to prison where one of the Bellamies strangled himself the other was executed with the conspirators his name Hierome Bellamy From which of the two brothers our Adversary Thomas Bellamy is descended and whether from either or neither himself best knows But it seems by his behaviour that the crime of hiding and disguising traitors runs in the blood For what is his covering of the parricidial doctrine of Jesuites with falfe constructions but hiding and disguising traitors whose doctrine is declared treasonable by sundry Acts of Parliament Let him take warning by the crime and the ill successe of these men of his name and apply to himself that Sentence of Tully which he misapplyeth to the Protestants of Integrity Mirror te Antoni quorum facta imitere corum exitus non pertimescere Since you imitate the actions of men of your name Sir Bellamy I wonder you are not frighted with thinking of their ends The Devil and the Jesuites having been so often disappointed of their attempts against England in the end contrived the foulest plot that ingenious cruelty did in any age imagine the Gunpowder-Treason which shall be to the Worlds end the wonder of succeeding ages and the shame of ours This was the godly product of the English Seminaries abroad and the Roman education It is easie to judge that the plotters of it had been bred long in another Climate then the middle aire of England for it looks like one of the feats of Caesar Borgia Non nostri generis monstrum nec sanguinis Of that attempt to cut off King and Kingdome with one blow none could be capable but such as had many years breathed the same aire where he reigned who wished that the Romans had but one neck that he might cut it off with one stroke But a Jesuite is capable of devising and the Romish zeal of executing any mischief though never so prodigious to promote the Papal interest And they have law for it even the Roman Decree the Oracle of the Pope himself We do not account them for Causa 23. qu. 5. Can. Excommunicatorum Non enim eos homicidas arbitramur quos adversus excommunicatos zelo Catholicae Matris Ecclesiae ardentes aliquos eorum trucidasse configerit murtherers saith his Holinesse who burning with the zeal of our Catholick Mother the Church against exmunicate persons shall happen to kill some of them Now England was lying under many excommnnications when the Gunpowder-Treason was plotted and lyeth under them still for they never were repealed Truly so far we must excuse Campian Garnet Hall Hamond and other Jesuites who have plotted or incouraged rebellions and treasons in England They have done no more then they were commanded or allowed by the Pope And here I must be a suitor to all the conscionable Roman Catholieks who abhorre these wicked wayes to acknowledge ingenuously that the Actors were grounded upon the fundamental Laws of the Court of Rome And that the Pope the Head of their Faith is he that commands by his Canons and Bulls the slaughter of those that displease him the breach of faith the deposing of Kings and the rebellion of the people as I have sufficiently demonstrated before If after that they adhere to the other points of the Roman Religion upon this main ground of the Roman Faith That the Pope cannot erre they blinde themselves wilfully and building their faith upon an unsafe ground they may come short of the end of their faith the salvation of their souls This power of deposing Kings and exposing them to the attempts of their enemies so peremptorily assumed by the Pope and so boldly executed by his zealous agents ought to be grounded upon some proof out of holy Writ In all the passages which I have alledged out of Jesuites books I finde but two of those proofs The one of Bellarmine who proveth Bellarm. lib. cui Titulus Tortus p. 19. Rex Anglorum subjectus est Papae jus omnibus Christiadis communi ratione Apostolicae potestatis juxta illud Ps 4. 4. Constitues eos Principes super omnem terram that the King of England is subject unto the Pope by a right common to all Christians by reason of the Apostolick power according to this Text Psal 44. Thou shalt make them Princes over all the earth In that Psalm which with us is the 45. this promise is made to the Kings Spouse which is the Church the Spouse of Christ our King Instead of thy Fathers house shall be thy children whom thou mayest make Princes over all the earth Answerably to that we learn Rev. 1. 6. That God hath made us Kings and Priests unto God our Father That blessing then to be understood and fulfilled in Gods good time belongs to all the true children of the Church The ingrossing of it to the Pope alone to the exclusion of all Christians is a bold and indeed a ridiculous inclosing of Commons without any warrant Suarez brings a proof of the like validity After that horrid assertion alledged before that after that a Prince is excommunicated he may be dispossess'd or slain by any persons whatsoever He prevents the objection out of Rom. 13. 1. Let every soul Suarez adversus sect Anglic lib. 6. c. 6. sect 24. 〈◊〉 Paulus his verbis Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdi a sit Rom. 13 nunquam addidit etiam potestatibus excommunicatis vel deprvatis a Papa omnes subditisint be subject to the higher Powers and saith that the Apostle never added Let all be subject also to the Powers excommunicated and deprived by the Pope A recreative proof which would make but a poor enthymema The Apostle addeth not that we must be subject also to the higher Powers deprived by the Turk Ergo if the Great Turk pronounce a sentence of deprivation against a Christian Prince the Subjects of that Prince are free from their allegiance and may dispossess and kill him when they think good But what These proofs are as concluding as those that the Popes themselves bring to prove their power Nicholaus 1. Epist ad Michael Imp. Constant Petro specialiter ostensum est ut ea mactaret manducaret Illi soli jussum est ur rete plenum piscibus ad littus traheret as when Pope Nicholas the I. proveth the Papal power because it was said to Saint Peter Kill and eat and because to him alone was granted that power to draw a Net full of Fishes to Land Likewise Bonifacius the VIII proveth his primacy Bonifac. VIII